I would love to see some actual numbers on this, but here is another perspective on this:
A) Students educated in Berlin are far more likely to move to other cities, since there are e.g. no jobs in production. How many engineers working at Daimler did study in Berlin (i.e. costing the city money, without contributing by paying taxes)?
B) A lot of large companies are currently opening offices in Berlin. They are gladly using the services of the city, as are their well-payed employees, effectively raising the rent. However, they will still pay taxes at their headquarters in a different city.
As I said, I have no numbers on this, but the situation is way to complex to just say that Berlin is wasting tax money. It certainly is - in a lot of areas - but so are others states.
Instead of being pissed that Berlin is trying to improve the situation and keep the city affordable for everybody, maybe we should start asking how we can achieve the same in other sought after locations as well.
Economics of housing is econ 101: if there are more people than available apartments, prices rise so that at some point the number of people who can afford to rent becomes equal to number of apartments available to rent.
You can't house more people without building more apartments. That's the only way to provide housing for everybody. It becomes affordable as a side effect of building more apartments.
The other "solution", as practiced by NY, SF and apparently Berlin, is to artificially keep prices down with government regulations like rent control.
This strategy has been torn to shreds by Nobel-winning economics but more importantly it's clear that it doesn't work. SF's city government keeps talking about "affordable housing" since forever and yet we get to be in the top 2 of the most expensive US cities.
If Berlin follows the same "keep prices down, don't allow more buildings" strategy, it'll end up much more expensive 5 years from now.
It's not about keeping prices down, though - it's about existing inhabitants living there instead of being displaced by wealthier immigrants to the city. That's certainly not uncontroversial; I think it's bullshit, but that's what these people actually want.
The only solution to this problem is new, denser housing. That way you can accommodate the people who've lived there for awhile plus all the new arrivals. But unfortunately it won't happen with rent control, strict zoning regulations, and restrictions on knocking down existing apartment buildings (to replace them with bigger ones). That's why SF has such a terrible housing crunch that is growing worse over time. I don't know why Berlin would want to go down that road too, but it seems to be their desire.
>if there are more people than available apartments, prices rise so that >at some point the number of people who can afford to rent becomes >equal to number of apartments available to rent.
A) Students educated in Berlin are far more likely to move to other cities, since there are e.g. no jobs in production. How many engineers working at Daimler did study in Berlin (i.e. costing the city money, without contributing by paying taxes)?
B) A lot of large companies are currently opening offices in Berlin. They are gladly using the services of the city, as are their well-payed employees, effectively raising the rent. However, they will still pay taxes at their headquarters in a different city.
As I said, I have no numbers on this, but the situation is way to complex to just say that Berlin is wasting tax money. It certainly is - in a lot of areas - but so are others states.
Instead of being pissed that Berlin is trying to improve the situation and keep the city affordable for everybody, maybe we should start asking how we can achieve the same in other sought after locations as well.