Topic: Impressions of Marzahn

[DJ Doena]

As some of you may know, I was born behind the "iron curtain".

In the late 70s and early 80s the East German government finally got a hold of the housing problem and started to build modern (for that era) appartment housings that were of three varieties:

You had the 11-storey long-block with elevators, the 5-storey long-block without elevators and the 18/21-storey high-rise.

They left lots of space between these blocks for green patches and in the past 35 years these plants and trees have grown.

In the following link you can see how Marzahn, an east-Berlinian borough, where I grew up looks today:

http://doena-journal.net/2294/marzahner-impressionen

[GSyren]

Well, the area looks well kept. How popular are the apartments in these houses today, and how well regarded is the area?

We have similar suburbs in Stockholm, although built somewhat earlier, mostly in the sixties. Many of these suburbs are now populated mostly by immigrants, and they have a low status.

[DJ Doena]

Well, the area looks well kept. How popular are the apartments in these houses today, and how well regarded is the area?

We have similar suburbs in Stockholm, although built somewhat earlier, mostly in the sixties. Many of these suburbs are now populated mostly by immigrants, and they have a low status.

It actually depends. In Berlin there were three buroughs built that way: Marzahn, Hellersdorf and Hohenschönhausen.

And each one of them has their good corner and their bad corner (Marzahn alone has a popultation of ~137,000).

After reunification it really depended on who adminstered a certain block. Some turned into cooperatives where every tennant holds a share. These are usually the better-kept ones because the tennants have a say in which modernisations whould be done and when.

Other companies just wanted to make a quick buck and they took money from the government to house asylants and immigrants and instead of spreading them over the burough they put them all in the same quarters. The neighbourhoods went south and the locals moved to other parts of the burrough or even other burroughs.

For example this one:



Is a cooperative where my mom and my granny live.


This one on the other hand is on the other end of the burrough and almost in original conditions from when it was built:



That's where mostly immigrants and people who've fallen on hard times live.