Everything is not better in Berlin: there is a lot of smoking (including by young people) persistent unemployment in some former eastern neighborhoods, intense debate about how to or how not to better integrate some immigrants from Turkey into German society, and a small but troublesome left “scene” that recently set fire to dozens of parked motor vehicles in a so-called protest against renovation of an empty building.
At the same time, there is much that the Boston area might wish to emulate:
One remarkable difference is the ease of bicycling. If you are walking the streets of Berlin you need to make certain that you stay out of the bike lanes because there are bike lanes and bicyclists everywhere. Tom Menino needs to get himself to Berlin now to see what a really bike-friendly city looks like, and even this comparison does not give a full picture of the bike lanes of Berlin because Berlin is in area a much larger city than Boston (some 345 square miles compared to about 48 square miles). There are dedicated bike lanes on streets but many of the bike lanes are off the street, and there are even bike trails constructed along stretches of what used to be the Berlin Wall. These are marked with small signs and historical maps.
It’s not just the scale of the bicycle network that is striking: it’s also the ability to get the bike trails built. I moved into a house in western Boston suburb 10 years ago. One of the selling points of the house was that it was just next to a future bike trail. Ten years later the bike trail is still nowhere in sight, and I’ve since moved, but I still hope to see the bike trail completed some day.
The mass transit system is similarly vaster, more comprehensive, and easier to use, and the trains in general are cleaner, quieter, and more inviting that commuter rail in the Boston-metro area.
The airport is one area where Boston does not
appreciably lag, but that may not be an accurate comparison because there is still a lot if debate in Berlin about which airport to modernize. For a comparison that is truly startling fly through an airport like Schipholl near Amsterdam, which makes nearly all American airports look rudimentary and primitive.
The politics in Germany are sufficiently different to make direct comparisons difficult, but there are some striking differences in the media and in popular expression of political views. Again-Berlin is not clearly ‘better’ in all respects. There some extremist groups (both on the far left and the far right), though these are closely tracked by public authorities.
At the same time there is an extraordinarily vibrant press: at least three broadsheet newspapers, tabloids, and several national newspapers. I used to think years ago when I visited Germany that they were thin and skimpy compared to American newspapers, but that is no longer my impression today. More than anything I think a visit to Germany makes clear the startling decline of American newspapers, including the Globe.
Some of the tabloids like to try to whip of public outrage, but there does not seem to be any counterpart to the American cable networks, not to mention talk radio (this last point I am less certain). In any case I think Germans are still more likely than Americans to get some broad based news coverage and less likely to spend hours a day listening or watching a narrow news source that focuses on stoking (and creating) feelings of victimization and anger.
There is also a striking difference when it comes to bumper stickers. You do see some of the decals denoting that a car comes from Germany and some decals that list membership in an association, but the passive aggressive, or outright aggressive bumper stickers so popular in the US are just not around. You don’t see vehicles with terrorist hunting licenses or with WAC (White American Caucasian) bumper stickers. I do not know for certain if the difference in bumper stickers is partly the result of any regulation.
On a lighter side, there are a few surprising similarities, not least of which is the very active effort of Dunkin Donuts to expand into the Berlin market. You can still get lots of German bread and pastries, but if you happened to be craving a Dunkin Donut snack it’s easy to find it in some Berlin train stations.
Or are you Raj?
…a lot of time in Berlin as a resident, or are you someone who spent an week in Berlin on vacation?
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p>As someone who lived in Berlin for an extended period and has oft visited since then, you seem like the latter.
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p>Dunkin Donuts has been in the train stations for over a decade. They flooded into the east because it was easy and they have not really increased their market share since then. It is really more of a story of the limits of western expansion then a cautionary tale. Broetchen are still better than Dunkin bagels, as is German coffee.
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p>The bike lanes are decades old. Germans love to bike and they have been paying gas prices that still make our current prices look like a cake walk for some time now, the current US gas price and exchange rate notwithstanding, and cycling is a very deeply entrenched cultural way of dealing with it. Companies often have changing rooms, shower, bike rooms, etc. to deal with it.
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p>Do you speak German? Fluently? If not, you are really not in a position to discuss how Germans get their news.
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p>There are plenty of very political bumper stickers in Germany. It is actually a very German thing. Me thinks you don’t really understand the local culture as much as you presume.
He never purported to be an expert on German society and culture. He is just sharing some observations.
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p>I hear a lot of good things about Berlin as a place to visit but I have also read about how the city is itself essentially bankrupt, has been losing people for decades, and is one of the poorest major European capitals. Reunification for Berlin has been struggle even as it has flourished culturally, in part because it seems prices are so low there, artists and other culturals can afford it. Boston, not so affordable, but likely more prosperous.
I do speak German,though I would not be hired as a language teacher, but I am not responding to defend my German, but to ask why Massachuetts can’t
do a few of the things that seem possible elsewhere.
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p>I lived in Germany for a year in 1989-1990 and spent about six weeks in Berlin in early 1990,and I have visted several other times, so while I have not carried out some kind of scientific study of German bike trails I have noticed the chnage over time.
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p>The bike path growth in Berlin has been extraordinary. Yes, there always was a lot of bike use, but the committment to expanding the bike path and bike lane system has been impressive, and what’s even more impressive (compared to what I’ve seen literally in my own Metro-West backyard) was the ability to get the bike paths and bike lanes built.
No one has convinced me, yet, that Boston is the kind of city that could handle a big conversation to bike paths. With the amount of traffic and the skinny lanes of most of the streets, I really don’t see how it’s feasible, especially given the fact that there are so many people who live outside Boston and commute in: it’s one of the 10 largest metro areas in the country, yet not even in the top 20 in terms of population size. Certainly, parts of the city could make the transition, but unless the entire city buys into biking – and unless commuters from outside the city move to the MBTA en masse (which the MBTA couldn’t even handle now), I just think Boston as a biking city is a fantasy.
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p>All that said, Menino has taken biking pretty seriously over the past few years. He even has a biking czarina (who’s actually tentatively schedualed to go onto my weekly podcast, with my cohost who absolutely loves biking.
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p>So, I get your concern – and I’d certainly love a biking city too – I just don’t think it is or even could happen.
to compare Berlin and Boston – totally different sizes, density, histories.
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p>Nevermind culturally. Germans are very logical. I loved the billboards in the trainstations listing the % of trains on time that day. It was broken down by germany as a whole, and for the province, and for that station. Very cool.
he went to the city, saw some ideas he’d like to bring here, and wrote a diary about it. It would be much more random if he compared Boston to a city he knew nothing of and had never been to, wouldn’t it? I guess I’m trying to go against the grain and be one of those Americans who are “very logical.”
blows the doors off of Boston don’t it!
Their entire infrastructure is also something that might have the capacity to endure and surely is not as old and run down as Boston’s. I like the green spaces in every part of Berlin. As far as newspapers, well let me say what would be obvious to a visiting Berliner. It is after all only propaganda we have here, not news at all.