How much do Berlin’s bottle collectors earn? Our guest Wouter Bernhardt has done the math – it’s a measly €150 a month. He thinks it amounts to a form of socially accepted poverty. Wouter is host of the Berlinology podcast. Listen to the full episode of ‘The Bottle Collector’ here: http://viertausendhertz.de/bln02/
The Berlin Senate has changed the AirBnB law to allow people to rent out their flats as holiday apartments for up to 60 days per year. Starting on May 1, you can obtain a registration number from the Bürgeramt, which must be displayed online. But you still risk getting evicted by your landlord for using your flat for commercial purposes.
We talk to Jana Burbach and Niko Schulz-Dornburg, the writers of a new TV series about flat sharing in Berlin. The show is called Just Push Abuba, and it’s the first English-language show produced by ZDF. Watch it online at: https://www.zdf.de/serien/just-push-abuba
In February, Berlin passed a milestone: the Berlin wall has now been down for longer than it was up (28 years). At the same time, an opinion poll found that Die Linke became the most popular party in Berlin for the first time since 1990. The city’s R2G coalition parties (Die Linke, SPD and Die Grünen) would get 57% of the vote. Are they doing a good job? Joel thinks so. Our guest Konrad Werner thinks they could do better.
Some Berliners want to dramatically reduce advertising in the city. Berlin Werbefrei is an initiative collecting signatures to trigger a referendum. They propose eliminating ads on public buildings. It would reduce the Berlin’s revenue by €31 million annually, or 0.1% of the state budget. Find out more at https://berlin-werbefrei.de
