Who chooses where we live?
I’ve been living in Berlin’s socially mixed neighborhoods for a long time. What some find charming is explicitly desirable for others – and a no-go area for the next person. However, we quickly forget that most residents simply have no choice. I’ve had the wildest discussions. I know the arguments about the uncomfortable feeling in the park and old syringes in the sandpit. But I also know the complaining about the new, hip café around the corner and the increased rent. The connections are often just as abstract as they are obvious and it would go beyond the scope of the matter to examine this in more detail. Nevertheless: Tenant X or coffee house Y are rarely to blame, but more often they are the ones who suffer.
Capitalism means that we cannot decide where we live.
Factors such as social capital, economic capital and also the market are (now greatly abbreviated) crucial. So I live in the social mix because it’s a financial compromise for me. Here, as a family, I can still afford to live in the big city without working myself completely to waste. And what is a very unknown neighborhood or no-go area for many people is a living space for others and my family. In the future, the square meter will cost us €10.50. This is well below the Berlin average and just below the German average. So I’m not complaining anyway. Why should I, I found an apartment. Hurray! There are daycare centers, green spaces, playgrounds and a lot of contrasting programs here. Like many families, we literally fell out of the Berlin ring in the process of finding an apartment… Which isn’t a problem for everyone and doesn’t mean the same thing in every direction, but translated it means that those with less income don’t decide where or how they live .
This is nothing new to our ears per se, we just have to slowly get used to the fact that this income limit will move further and further into the middle class. So-called problem neighborhoods are those with a lot of reported crimes, a lot of unemployment, and migration histories. You know the definition. Social mixing: increasingly difficult. Yes, sometimes in conversation it almost seems to me as if many people would like to banish everyone else from their neighborhood. The drug addicts, the ones whose native language isn’t German, the others. And me? I have to be honest and always admit to myself how lucky I am to find different realities of life right on my doorstep. So I regularly feel like an intruder with my freelance, but usually above-average, income. And fight against inner demons while secretly wishing for a nice restaurant and a second cafe. Yes, it is dripping with ambivalence and contradiction.
3 rooms, kitchen, bathroom – what does my child need?
Accompanied by social media placing excessive demands on me, but also on my four walls, we only managed to be invited to four apartment viewings, all of which were exclusively through private contacts. Social capital, sure. One was too expensive, one was too small. One was unrenovated and another on the ground floor. Nothing for us. Unfortunately, as a little social media mouse, I ran into a problem with my job:
My eye is conditioned to see extremely beautiful and well-furnished old buildings.
Full of designer furniture, herringbone parquet and one or two extra square meters and thinks I see normal life here… For a long time I tried to convince myself that this was just my taste. Today I know that not only many of my friends, but also most of the people I follow on Tik Tok or Instagram simply earn more than me, who has had a wonderful time with her laminate for four years now. There are no heirlooms in the apartment or a saved Bolia sofa. While many have learned to stay with themselves when looking, I quickly sense the measure of all things, the right in the wrong, another item on the wish list for the all-round carefree package as a family. As if I would feel better with all of these things and above all: as if this were an expression of true love for my child and my partner. What I’m currently trying to tap into in therapy is a form of upward comparison that has neatly disguised itself as my taste.
I now think I know which refrigerator you need if you’re 30 years old cooking for a small child and what children’s rooms will look like in 2023. And the apartment should also fit into this scheme. With a distorted view of the world, finding and setting up one isn’t that cool or easy. But now I’m practicing staying put and weighting my love language differently. Who wants to work more to buy more things?
We were that family that really tried every which way.
We had printed notices in our favorite neighborhoods long before the ImmoScout profile was up. When it became clear that that wasn’t nearly enough, I became a member after all, and like a part-time job, I scheduled fixed times for searching on my cell phone and spent hours filling out cover letters and corresponding with property managers. The time commitment was so immense that I sometimes had to stop working while taking parental leave in order to concentrate on looking for an apartment and still have enough time for my child. In addition, it was a psychological challenge to keep thinking about a new apartment, to be hopeful, only to end up with a deleted offer without an invitation to a viewing appointment.
After 10 months of searching, my main concern was that the lack of a suitable offer would mean that we would have to leave Berlin sooner or later. Fortunately, we only had internal pressure to move out, we were not bound by a contract termination or personal use lawsuit and we quit just on each other’s feet. Nevertheless, it remains oppressive to realize that you are completely unfree in such a life-changing decision.
Rent, buy, exchange.
Anyone who is on the common portals will repeatedly see exchange offers that have displaced regular rental apartments from the regular portals. In addition, it is difficult to find an apartment today without various premium memberships and without being on your devices 24/7 and then considering swapping your current apartment for something better. The shock followed immediately. All the exchange apartments with the dream rents in the dream neighborhoods in the really family-friendly house and with the great connections are not potential exchange apartments at all. These are increasingly the apartments of people “who want something new”, need a “change of scenery” and who “have become too bored with the neighborhood”. And what used to count as a legitimate reason for moving is no longer a reason to venture into the shark tank of looking for an apartment in the midst of a crisis in the housing market. So people in need who have been laid off for personal use, have too small a home or have a history of separation meet those who definitely don’t want to see a deterioration in terms of facilities, location and look and still wouldn’t find a new apartment so easily… A disappointing mix if you ask me.
“Hey Tom, is our apartment maybe something for you?” I ask the lawyer in the 90m2 old building in Friedrichshain, who has “lived in the neighborhood for too long”.
“Unfortunately not, but good luck with your search :)” he replies. I’m on the verge of proclaiming a socialist revolution, but I’m really about to wish that Tom dies in the Samaritan neighborhood. Does it help to wish for the foresight of those around you? I think it’s nice to reflect on how much living space you take up or really need when you live in a big city. The frustration is growing. The need too. I see offers like “Who will swap Munich for Berlin?”, exchange requests for “Altona for Kreuzberg”, but I also keep coming across European metropolises like Barcelona or Paris.
The situation is so tense that no one can afford to enter the race without an offer.
I am shocked and would never have imagined that this was our only key to happiness. And how twisted and complicated it comes around the corner.
Our exchange partner is just as perplexed as we are. Having been separated for some time, the rent for their current apartment is becoming too expensive. She wants to stay in the neighborhood, has a limited budget and her ex as a subtenant. Bravo. Both are unlucky and codependent. When we hear about each other through a mutual friend, she is excited and I am skeptical. This all sounds like a lot of work and even more stress. After a short back and forth, we look at the apartment and are thrilled. Chicer than we could have dreamed of, compromises in location and price but hey, we dare. Our property management companies are small and cooperative, our WhatsApp conversations seemingly endless. We write about the upcoming phone calls, about advance payments and agree on amounts, moving days and contract signing. Everyone is afraid. Fear of quitting too early and being left with nothing. Fear that a property management company will suddenly leave. Fear of the day when two households suddenly have to go through two moves, two acceptances, two handovers at the same time. Take a deep breath. Ultimately, we were left with a canceled rental agreement and no new one for three days. That could just about be suppressed.
Here we are now.
And we know that we can’t move anymore for the time being. That we won’t find anything and the market is so tense that our chances in the future are even worse than they were last year. I would have held out the search for another half a year, after which we would have had to expand our radius dramatically. So much so that our hometowns would have been included. So much so that the Berlin idea we once had when we moved out of our childhood rooms suddenly failed because we, like so many people, no longer have a say in where we want to live. Now, so shortly before the move, I often ask myself what the search would have looked like if we hadn’t had such a serious demeanor, good Schufa information, and the ability to sell, write and design. The ability to check 100 times a day to see if there was a new offer and then respond immediately. The answer scares me.
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Photo: Jonas Denil
