What to do against rent insanity? : Expropriate does not solve the housing shortage

to lose The apartment, whether by resignation, expulsion by unfair means, or because of a more affordable rent, has become for many people in Berlin to the serious threat. The price jumps are exorbitant, after a modernisation is often astronomical. It seems that the prices rise by a multiple of Four. The average income is growing more slowly, at a comparatively low level.

The coalition is trying to counteract, reactivates the old regulatory measures, inventing new and makes mood with images of the enemy as the "rent monster." But anyone who has as the owner, nothing else in mind as the maximum utilization, can always find a detour; just in the Trend: the Rent of furnished Apartments on time. Since there is no lid stays on the rent, and the market value of the apartment is as high as in the non-rented condition.

the situation on The housing market changed the character and the mood of the city. Hedonistic Confidence differs widely diffused, and increasingly concrete fear; openness to the world is transformed into a yearning for closure and peace; the desire for progress weaken and makes a structural conservatism of the place.

This is always and everywhere the reason and ground for simple answers to complex problems, and for quick judgments in the search for the culprits for the unpleasant change. That is why Trump wants to build on the border with Mexico, a giant wall. And that is why activists and parts of the Berlin coalition want to expropriate large residential property companies. Here, as there, more and more people believe that in order for a solution to your problems seam. You will be disappointed.

"expropriation" sounds, for some, to socialism, to DDR, to the unlawful and arbitrary state action. But expropriation or socialization is also a means of the democratic constitutional state, regulated in the basic law. Even the British liberals have not been required to expropriate investors, if they use their residential palaces in Chelsea.

the Situation Justifies such a drastic coercive measure?

Against a socialization of the law, for the Initiative of this Saturday is collecting votes, talk of the doubt. The Situation justifies such a drastic coercive measure? All large stocks of expropriated companies were too small to decisively on the rental market. The Benefit for the General public is in question.

< a socialization of individual tenants benefit regardless of their income. The costs are difficult to calculate, but a burden on Berlin because of the follow-up costs in a dangerous Dimension. The limit of 3000 dwellings is arbitrary. Urban societies are not necessarily the better landlords in the East and the West. The major price drivers are more likely to smaller speculators.

And there are other ways to target Berlin as a socially diverse, livable city for as many people as possible get to. The most direct is in the "residential urban development plan 2030" from the administration of Senator Lompscher, whose party supports the expropriation of the Initiative: "The housing shortage is one of the main causes for the dramatically rising prices, ( ... ), and the social consequences," it says. With the expropriation of this deficiency is not remedied.

With the sledgehammer, What are the chances of the popular initiative has to expropriation?

Who belongs to Berlin? With the research collective Correctiv the daily mirror runs a large project on the Berlin housing market. Click here for the interactive page.