Since 1991, about 164,000 residents have turned their backs on the German capital, moving to the nearest suburbs. This is roughly the size of two small towns. The figures speak for themselves: a sinking ship is not the most attractive place under the sun. In 2001 alone, 30,000 Berliners moved outside the city for permanent residence! And since 1991, the capital's population has decreased by 270,000 residents.
Meanwhile, Berlin's suburbs have been growing much faster since the fall of the infamous wall than is typical for the outskirts of the country's large industrial centers: if population inflow into the Munich area during the reporting period is 13%, and into the Hamburg suburban zone - 12.5%, then in Berlin this figure is 20%. There is one not-so-joyful detail in the capital's migration process: the city is being left by people with means, while the unemployed and low-income lack the funds to do so. Therefore, Berlin is visibly becoming poorer, as tax revenues to the state treasury decrease with each day due to population outflow. Land potentially suitable for development also remains unclaimed, and there is, by the way, much more of it in the capital than, say, in Bremen or Hamburg.
What makes Berlin worse than the neighboring towns? It seems that for most citizens, when deciding to change their place of residence, nature and clean air play a secondary role. First of all, the province attracts people with relatively low consumer prices and relatively cheap plots of land allocated for housing construction.
The districts of eastern Berlin, for example Pankow and Marzahn-Hellersdorf, suffer primarily from population outflow. In 2001 alone, 4,000 people moved beyond the city limits from these districts, and many of them settled not right next to Berlin, but moved to live and work in Bavaria or Baden-Württemberg.
Not only the capital can consider itself 'abandoned': cities and towns of the neighboring federal state of Brandenburg also suffer from a catastrophic population outflow. Thus, in Cottbus, Brandenburg, and Frankfurt an der Oder in 2001, only 80% of the number of residents that were there in 1990 lived there. In the localities of Kleinmachnow and Falkensee, the population has halved over the last decade.
And what is happening in the center of the capital? It seems that in recent years, urban planning in Berlin has been limited almost exclusively to the development of the historical center, primarily the main attraction of the new Berlin - Potsdamer Platz. The authorities' good intentions to turn city-owned land plots into inexpensive area for housing construction for families with small children remained in the project folder.
The fruits of this, to put it mildly, misguided policy are now being reaped: on the outskirts of the city, barely fitting into its contours, single-family cottages are sprouting like mushrooms after rain, interspersed with numerous gas stations and giant construction and furniture stores. Traffic jams created in the mornings by cars entering the city and in the evenings by ex-Berliners hurrying home are beginning to assume a threatening character. This trend threatens the city with a real ecological catastrophe. The newly minted provincials themselves, it seems, do not care. Isn't a little nervous tension worth a spacious and comfortable dwelling in the fresh air, at half the price of a capital one?
Despite the sad figures, Berlin should not yet despair: the capital still records, albeit slight, population growth. Thus, in 2001, compared with the previous year, the number of Berliners increased by 6,265 people, thereby reaching 3,388,434 residents. Gratitude for this should be expressed, first of all, to citizens of foreign origin, because if in 2000 the number of residents of the capital with German passports sharply decreased, then their ranks were replenished by 6,500 foreigners. Thus, it is foreign citizens who help save Berlin from a real demographic catastrophe.