Word: prenzlauer
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Sirens breaking the silence of the night, cars engulfed by meter-high flames. This is not a scene from the banlieues of Paris, but from the trendy Eastern Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg, where in recent weeks an ongoing battle against gentrification has intensified. In the past two months alone, 29 cars - mostly luxury brands like Mercedes, BMW and Porsche - have been set ablaze in Berlin (police believe left-wing extremists are to blame). In a letter published online in January, a leftist radical group called BMW (Bewegung für militanten Widerstand, or Movement for Militant Resistance) admitted...
...Prenzlauer Berg has gone from being one of the cheapest neighborhoods in Berlin to one of the most expensive, with rents increasing tenfold. At the weekly Saturday farmers market on Kollwitzplatz Square, a stand offers currywurst (sausage with curry sauce), a local specialty, with 22-karat gold leaf and a side of french fries with truffle mayonnaise. The cafés surrounding the square are crowded with attractive young people sipping macchiatos. And pretty girls in lavender outfits hand out organic apples alongside brochures promoting an "urban village" called Marthashof currently in construction nearby. "Quality of life without compromises," promises...
...which, he says, was also directed at the Marthashof development. Sitting in a café on Kastastanienallee, Technau points to a house with a crumbling façade. "This is probably the only house on this street that hasn't been renovated yet," he says. Technau has lived in Prenzlauer Berg all his life and currently pays $400 a month for his two-bedroom apartment. He's worried that with rental prices continuing to rise, he won't be able to afford to live in the neighborhood much longer...
...young hipsters all came here and then they just grew up and starting having babies," says Jana von Oheimb-Rosta, a slim 34-year-old with jet black hair, as she lurches to grab her four-year-old before he bolts. She came to Prenzlauer Berg as a teenager before the Wall fell, and lived in an occupied house. "Now, the entire yuppie world is moving in here," she says...
...hipness of Prenzlauer Berg certainly isn't dead; it just sometimes smells kind of funny - which is why so many of the neighborhood's establishments now offer diaper-changing stations in their bathrooms...