The new interpretation of "East vs West" - inside Berlin
 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...574248,00.html

It's a shame. having lived in Berlin throughout the 80s and knowing it from the cold war period, as well as having visited
my parents often in the 90s and until 2002, and still sometimes see old friends living there, I know how the city was, and
now is, and that it is true that there has been a massive shift from the former western centre of the Kurfürstendamm to
the new eastern centre around Friedrichstrasse. And both feel very different indeed. Can't say I like the new Berlin, it has
become more noisy, more aggressive, a very unpersonal and, imo, "ungemütlich" place. Plenty of architectural sins. Many
germans have moved out, many foreigners went in, every fifth person lives by any kind of social aid, the city is in massive
debts, rsulting fromma banking scandal some years ago that crippled finances. In this years and last years German city
ranking regarding investement attractiveness, Berlin scored last place in a list of 50 (Munich being the top).



LESSONS OF THE PAST
http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/9577/040103fgmt0.jpg

POTENTIAL TURNED INTO FUTURE
http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/3...tscheidjj2.jpg

NOW AND THEN - SIDE BY SIDE
http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/7...enmarktrf0.jpg


(all pics found in the www)

Welcome to prosperity:up: It sounds a lot like the majority of US cities.