8.00 pm - 10.00 pm
While Berlin’s reinstatement as the capital of Germany has triggered a building boom and raised great expectations of its transformation into a ”global city” or at the very least a major European "service metropolis", de-industrialisation and job losses in key sectors of its economy have led to mass unemployment and social polarisation. The city has not been able to fulfil many of the exaggerated expectations of its economic development in the turbulent years since 1990. Indeed, Berlin’s socio-economic restructuring appears to confirm predictions that it is developing towards an economically and socially polarised city.
The presentation will highlight the main tendencies of socio-economic development in Berlin:
§ Within the East-German economic area and its overall critical developments, Berlin is still a relatively strong "economic island" with good development prospects in the long run, however, the city's function as the new German capital city doesn't match up with an corresponding growth of strategic headquarter city functions and doesn't lead to the formation of a "service metropolis".
§ The city is facing a tremendous loss of jobs in traditional industries, which contributes to a rise of unemployment and the spread of urban poverty; in spatial terms the urban poor are concentrating in several inner urban districts of West-Berlin, whereas other inner urban districts are becoming more and more attractive to new urban scenes and are subject to a process of gentrification.
§ The city has been a prime playground for the activities of professional subsidy hunters in the real estate and building investment business, which left behind a huge pile of empty office space; indirectly, the speculative real estate boom has also contributed to the the city's financial crisis.
§ New islands of economic growth have been developing in Berlin, particularly in research and development intensive activities like the software industry, biotechnology and medical engineering; additionally there has been a strong growth in the Berlin media industry (which is based on the particularly strong "socio-cultural capital" of Berlin) and the city now ranks among the important "global media cities".
§ At the same time, the city is an outstanding example of a "worst practice" urban governance which has led to a financial crisis with really catastrophic effects; this crisis has been actively produced by the former urban government in setting up a large public financial corporation (Bankgesellschaft Berlin) that engaged in speculative real estate bonds and failed, leaving the city with an unexpected financial burden of several EUR billions. Even today members of the Berlin political class are continuing to make a private profit from these real estate bonds. Today, the Berlin government tries to consolidate the city's financial situation by severe cuts in social expenditure and public services, particularly in schools, universities and public medical centres, a policy which indirectly might also damage the prospects of Berlin‘s few growth sectors in the field of knowledge-intensive economic activities.