Friend of Democracy,
The biggest problem in major German cities (and not just in Germany)?
The housing shortage.
Rents are rising. People are being forced out of their homes.
Last weekend, the Left Party (Die Linke) won the election in Berlin on this very issue. Elif Eralp is likely to become the next Governing Mayor. How does she plan to solve the housing problem? Through stricter monitoring of abuses, rent caps, and the state buying up private housing—so-called socialisation. That helps alleviate symptoms. It does not solve the problem.
It is a tragedy—the fact that the city’s biggest problem likely won’t be tackled adequately.
Indeed, it hasn’t been addressed sufficiently for a long time. If the core of the problem is the housing shortage, then the solution is more housing. Given its simplicity, that might sound like populism. But it is simply the principle of supply and demand.
Yes, it is true: people’s preferences—and consequently the influx into metropolitan areas—change faster than construction projects can be completed to accommodate them fully. But is Berlin’s current level of construction really all that was possible? Shouldn’t we have thought differently? Bigger? Much bigger? What if the tens of billions of euros that taxpayers (likely future ones, given the debt financing) will have to cough up to socialise Berlin’s housing were instead invested in the future? What if, for instance, we started today to develop a new residential area for a million people? With lightning-fast transport links—getting to the city centre in 15 minutes.
What if a party had campaigned on this idea? Not bulldozing allotment gardens for new housing. Not building on the recreational area Tempelhofer Feld. Not working against resistance. Not a case of “giving something up so that...”, but rather “creating something new for the better—for everyone.” It would have combined the necessary task of addressing immediate symptoms with a bold, sweeping initiative—a promise that anyone could understand. A promise backed by the well-founded prospect of overcoming Berlin’s biggest contemporary problem.
Perhaps The Left would have garnered a few percentage points less with their conservative approach last Sunday. Perhaps we could still confront them with this idea. Perhaps there is still a slim chance that, in this wonderful city, mere administration can give way to growth.
See you in Democracy
Johannes Eber