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March 09, 2004
Berlin's Creative Class
"A Renaissance of Counterculture" (reg. req.) in today's Washington Post leaves me a little ambivalent. Although it implies that the fate of Tacheles, East Berlin's best-known art squat might have turned for the better since we last heard, it's not yet clear that a growing creative economy can turn Berlin around.
Despite Tacheles' continued success, the economic situation in Berlin remains utterly dire. From the Post story:
As the wall recedes into history, Berlin has unemployment of 18 percent, 1 1/2 times the national rate. Its government struggles under $64 billion in debt. The economy is so lifeless that airports of this largest city (population 3.4 million) in this most populous country of Europe offer not a single nonstop flight to the United States.
$64 billion in debt (depressing details here) is more than double the state of California's, and CA has about 10 times as many citizens as Berlin. And the 18% uneployment rate above is surely just the official number, which is bound to be lower than the actual rate.
Beneath the empty office towers of places like the new Potzdamer Plaz, interesting stuff is happening:
The greater energy is on the storefront scale, notably in parts of the east. Streets are dotted with art galleries, bookstores, fashion boutiques, yoga centers, ethnic restaurants and techno music clubs. Here and there is a software firm and a film studio. A huge red-brick brewery complex in the Prenzlauerberg district has reopened as the "Culture Brewery," a commercial hive of movie theaters, restaurants, a large supermarket and halls that can be rented for parties.
This description is inadequate: my memory of Berlin is of dozens of small businesses with absurdly narrow purposes--tiny closet-like techno record shops or clothing stores selling a dozen variations of the same t-shirt concept and milkshakes--that seem like they couldn't possibly survive, but do. "Emergent" is totally the wrong word for it, except that it evokes the sense that no one checked with central command before opening shop, and if goods are sold, well, that's nice, but not why they're there. The first shop I noticed like these, a bookstore that sells only books about trains--seemed adorably eccentric, maybe some rich person's hobby. Knowing now that entire neighborhoods were made up of the retail equivalent of personal websites, they seem like a phenomenon. How people pay their rents running those places, I have no idea.
It's clear that Berlin's economy, such as it is, is in the hands of its creative class. In a city where there isn't even the potential for other sections of the economy (like manufacturing or finance) to contribute, the burden on the city's creative class is huge. The gentrification of Tacheles over the last few years looks a lot more appealing in that light. And it does take money to keep creative businesses going.
I found that Richard Florida's recently written on just this subject in his (free!) "Europe in the Creative Age" report for Demos. Florida puts Germany's creative economy at about average among European countries, but losing ground to the US, Sweden, and other Northern European countries (it's well ahead of peers like France and Italy). Florida has a bit more on the relative creative economies of the US and other countries in his current column (scroll down to the graph) on his site, though I don't see a permalink to the essay.
Florida covers issues of demographics and immigration, which affect Germany very significantly and will be deeply connected to Berlin's future. Florida's "Three T's" of technology, talent, and tolerance seem for the most part well-met (although other parts of Germany have far bigger tech sectors). Despite the highly tolerant attitude of Berlin's own creative class, plans for the city that treat its huge immigrant population as a real asset don't exist (that I'm aware of). Can a vital creative class have any meaningful economic effect on immigration policy in Berlin? If it's Florida's right that "dynamic knowledge-economies do not beget social cohesion; rather certain kinds of social cohesion can beget dynamic knowledge-economies," it may have to.
Posted by Andrew at March 9, 2004 10:01 AM
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Spurred by a story in the Post (for which I have no link because you have to register), Andrew writes about the cottage creativity industry in Berlin. Things are looking dreary. A quibble: The original article misrepresents the Kulturbrauerei which, [Read More]
Tracked on March 9, 2004 05:01 PM
Comments
this is just beyond strange and the first I heard of this. Can't be doing any better then the island in burbs of Copenhagen Super Squat that is causing the tax paying public to demand that the gov tear them down. It seem like living evidence of ancient culture is in Berlin.
Posted by: Xtian at March 10, 2004 02:02 PM
Xtian, you're referring to Christiania? It's not as if Berlin is one big squat! Although it can feel like that. The businesses in Berlin I describe certainly are tax-paying, just not very much.
Posted by: Andrew at March 10, 2004 04:25 PM