Comment by hocuspocus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hocuspocus | Hacker News Reader

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I wouldn't call it NIMBYism.

- Most residents in Berlin (and in Germany for that matter) rent their apartments.

- There's a fairly good supply of newly built homes. It's still not enough to absorb the population growth, but it's much better than in many German cities.

People complain because they can see the downside of this influx of tech workers very clearly, while the benefits aren't obvious, at least not yet. Rents have doubled in some areas. Government offices are understaffed. So are kindergartens, schools, ...

While the government is partly to blame, a lot of startups haven taken advantage of Berlin's situation in questionable ways. The time where you could hire cheap developers is definitely over, but it's still very common to underpay and abuse people in non-engineering positions, who very often are interns and freelancers.

Kreuzberg is maybe too emblematic and Google is a scapegoat here, but I can understand the resentment against tech incubators.

NIMBYISM and renting are not mutually exclusive. Especially in cities with rent control. The situation here seems a lot like the situation in San Francisco. A large renting population with rent control opposing development.

Why can't local government use these techies' income tax money to pay for schools and development? This smells like classic blameshifting.

Like with most societal problems in Germany, money is probably not an issue.

It will just keep getting harder to hire staff. Candidates know that their purchasing power and quality of life are threatened by the gentrification quicker than the government is willing to raise wages and invest in the infrastructure.

First thought is the time it takes to train new teachers and build new schools.

However: I literally cannot confirm or refute the possibility of blame shifting, as my German comprehension is at the level of headlines and 50% of content, I can’t do in-depth news coverage yet.

And what about rental prices? Subsidize them as well? I highly doubt that would happen

If you've ever been to the San Francisco Bay Area, you'll find that this never happens. Quite the opposite in some cases, the influx of thousands of upper middle-class young techies has priced out families (and teachers). This lowers enrollment, which results in school closures. Circularly, school closures reduces educational funding to the detriment of schools while increasing distance for children to travel to schools, encouraging more families to move away.

Logically you would think as these rich 20-somethings become rich 30-somethings they will start having children, but after 10 years they cannot afford SF either, so they also move away.

Sure, forcing out Google doesn't solve the problem, but it sends a very clear message: Profits are not more important than livable communities.

Exactly the same dynamic is happening in Amsterdam, where schools are closing down fast as less teachers can afford to live within the ring and move out to Almere and other satellites. Some local politici were even celebrating and advocating this displacement but were trounced at the last municipal elections, but the process continues and these schools are being refurbished and sold as elegant lofts in Hartje Hoofdstad.

That might be true in San Francisco, but across the Bay Area as a whole enrollment is actually rising at many primary schools.

Source?

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