"Our capital city" a Berlin Travel Page by Gerrem

I was several times in Berlin. I visited it during the time of the wall (West- and East-Berlin) and later when when the wall fell.

In 2000 I hospitated a week in the German Bundestag, the parliament. I got this chance as a member of Junior Chamber International.

Last time in 2002 my wife and I had a longer stay for sightseeing. In the last 10 years a lot of things have changed in Berlin and they are still changing.

On 3 October 1990 the city of Berlin finally saw nearly forty years of political and economic partition come to an end. Having regained its status as a single city, however, could not in itself overcome the many divisions that still remained between the former eastern and western sectors of Berlin. In fact, it was only the beginning of the tortuous process of again creating one city out of two.
Though German unification had set the stage for the former East Germany (and with it East Berlin) to establish social and economic conditions on a par with the western part of the country, nearly everyone was aware that this could not be achieved overnight and would require an enormous injection of financial resources. Now, ten years later, the time has come to examine how the two parts of the city once separated by the Berlin Wall have developed. In which directions has Berlin changed, both socially and economically?

Following unification, the two parts of the city developed along different and often highly divergent paths. The structural changes that took root at this time were engendered not only by reunification, but also by the process of globalization affecting all parts of the world.

The various economic developments seen in the two parts of Berlin during the last decade followed similar, though by no means uniform, routes. Eastern Berlin suffered a dramatic economic downturn caused by the collapse of huge state-owned enterprises, the widespread loss of its foreign markets to the east, and the overwhelming productivity advantage enjoyed by west German industry. But the situation in western Berlin in 1990 was also dramatic. There was a huge shift in industrial potential, particularly acute in the manufacturing sector, as sub-sidies that had supported West Berlin's industry dried up and producers began relocating their factories outside the city limits.

All these factors combined to provoke a precipitous loss of jobs in the manufacturing and trade sectors, a plight that would even spread to one industry that had experienced an unforeseen boom in Berlin-construction. This negative trend could only be slightly offset by the steady upswing in the city's travel and tourism industry or by the all too hesitant growth experienced in the service sectors.

One of the phenomena showing that Berlin was now becoming more like other cities was the movement of people to the suburbs. Fenced in by Berlin Wall, residents of the West Berlin were not able to migrate outside the city limits, as people had started doing in other large German cities as early as the 1970s and 1980s. At the same time, birth rates in eastern Berlin plunged. Today, the demographic differences between east and west are starting to level out, and the structure of private households in both parts of the city (families, single- and two-person house-holds) is looking more and more similar.

Fundamental changes have also been seen in Berlin's colleges and universities since 1990 as a result of an education needs assessment and the subsequent revamping of higher education institutions in both parts of the city. And the process of shutting down closing and merging educational facilities has yet to run its course. The relocation of the German government and parliament to Berlin has focused world attention on the city, as could be seen by the recent waves of German and international visitors to Berlin. Statistically, this is well evidenced by the increase in the number of hotels in Berlin as well as the high occupancy rates in both parts of the city.

The discontinuation of the high subsidies that had propped up Berlin's budget prior to unification meant that the city had much fewer resources with which to fulfil its public obligations, a situation that would make itself felt in nearly all aspects of life. In public health, education and the arts, Berlin suddenly found that it had many duplicate infrastructures, something it could no longer afford without the subsidies formerly enjoyed by West Berlin and without the special status formerly awarded East Berlin as capital of the GDR. It thus seems clear that budget consolidation will count among Berlin's most important political tasks for the foreseeable future.