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Comment by TillE | Hacker News Reader

A little punk, a little gritty.

Berlin is not particularly welcoming to posh types, or the kind of people who enjoy high-class exclusive nightlife. You really don't want to park your luxury car on the street.

For everyone else, I'd say Berlin is extremely free and tolerant and generally welcoming.

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In the east maybe. In the west there are plenty of flash cars in districts like Savignyplatz and in the outskirts of the city.

Yeah, you can get away with being old, boring, settled, and moderately wealthy in Charlottenburg. But if you're moving to Berlin for Berlin, it's probably not where you want to go. (Judging from the Toytown crowd, it seems to be full of people who are forced to be in Germany for their jobs and hate it.)

The outskirts are really suburban more than anything, and completely different.

In the Western city you have more the established businesses, in the Eastern city you have more the experimental and new ones. Both have their (dis)advantages, it depends on your industry / business model and who your customers are. I wouldn't dismiss one half of the city so easily.

at the risk of sounding a little snarky, i wouldnt put too much stock into what the toytown people are saying. the two main stereotypes who use toytown are probably not the best for networking and startup related interests.

but the disparate nautre of east/west berlin is one of the best things going for it. especially in the crossover areas like kreuzberg (not kreuzkoelln) and bits of mitte (that haven't been gentrified yet)

i think the stories of cars being burnt in the east part of the city are a little exaggerated. i havent really seen this type of behaviour in a long time.

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