Translation: Our quarter – our streets (Berlin, Neukölln) Photo: Stefan Klenke

Homeless person sleeping in U-Bahn station Berlin (Lichtenberg) – Photo: Stefan Klenke

Translates as: “Rixdorf needs to stay dirty!“ ), Berlin Neukölln, Photo by Stefan Klenke

Translates as “Fight the capitalism!“ – Photo by Stefan Klenke

I just heard on the news that the rents in Berlin increased by 70%(!!!)  in the last 10 years. The price is now around 10 Euro per square metre when it was just around 6 Euro a decade ago. The reason for this incredible rise according to the news was the increase in population. I was disgusted to hear this. I think the real reason is a system that supports greed and profiting on the needs of human beings. The system allowed house owners to raise and raise the rents without a healthy limit.

 New Berliners who moved from other cities and countries where they already were used too expensive rents willingly accepted to pay those “still relatively cheap“ Berlin rents while the less fortunate poorer Berliners were pushed out of the city centres to the cheaper borders. 

In a popular city  like Berlin there will always be people who would still be able to pay for way too expensive rents. But still the problem is the system who failed to build cheap social housing and instead decided to cash in and build luxury expensive apartments for renting or buying and did not introduce an effective rent cap – and created another gentrificated unfair unequal city. This system is called Capitalism.