tracking the berlin vibe-cession

Because, let’s face it, Berlin is not a pretty place. The winters are a total nightmare, no sunlight, no warm face. Its cuisine is all about fast food. Large parts of town smell like a public toilet; overdosed tourists randomly pass out on the street. It’s not a city where you would sit out on a cafe terrace to people-watch. But also it’s now nearl... See more

The four corners of Berlin https://t.co/YBxgQYBHQd

I’ve never understood why Berlin feels the need to advertise itself to other cities — we get enough free press every time a young journalist visits/moves here. But our new government launched a new advertising campaign and, to be fair, it’s just as cringe as they always are.

It’s true that walking through central London in 2024 can feel like navigating a bleak, postmodern satire of the thrills of urban spontaneity: ballpit bars and escape rooms for contrived office socials; expensive, ticketed mega-events; and security guards cosplaying as cops, moving civilians on from heavily surveilled POPS, or privately-owned publi

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Berlin was going to be different. If there was anything I’d heard more about this city than its unmatched freedoms, it was that anyone could afford a decent life here on a part-time job’s salary. Universities were free for everyone. I’d enrolled in a master’s program for the visa and found a student job in my first week. I moved into a shared Altba

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I’m not a big fan anymore. It’s such a Peter Pan kind of place, where you live in the moment, which is beautiful, until you realize that years have gone by.

IT WAS SAID that if you were a criminal, a member of some tinpot political party, an agitator for a minority interest group, a drug addict, a property speculator, a forger or bootlegger of any kind, an artist, a fashion designer, a writer, underground film director, musician, or just plain crazy, Berlin was where you would eventually end up. It see

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Berlin, baby! This is a city infected with a pre-teen’s idea of “being edgy.”