How Berlin is trying to avoid becoming another San Francisco for renters
When Kiddy Citny, an artist whose murals appeared on the original Berlin Wall, returned from a trip to Hong Kong a few months ago, he found a Europe transformed by the coronavirus pandemic. But while the art world went into hibernation in the crisis, he found new purpose as an advocate of affordable housing, just as Berlin passed a historic rent freeze into law.
Though a famously cheap city to live in not long ago, Berlin has seen its rental market explode in the last few years, threatening the hip urban culture that has grown up here. “Art is what’s made Berlin so big over the last 25 years” says Mr. Citny, who dodged East German guards to
No longer affordableThe “Berlin experiment”Housing and art in the time of COVID