The first week of the new year has almost passed and the city was busy cleaning the mess from New Year’s Eve. Poor BSR! Sadly though, many people of our republic do not have something keeping them busy. However: Compared to the preceding year the unemployment figures may have increased by 200 000 to a number of 3.325 million people, but it must be said that it can still not be spoken of such a serious depression (I am speaking about Germany). And many well-known economic experts do not predict a rapid change of that trend. Particularly Berlin has not been affected too seriously by the international economic crisis, compared to the rest of Germany.

2010 – It’s actually a pleasure reading that number. It’s such a smooth number! In this respect it is just asking you to draw balance of the last years: And taking a closer look, it doesn’t even look too bad for Germany. The rate of inflation for example has decreased by 0.4% (2.0% → 1.6%). The opposite has happened with Germany’s gross national product (GNP). With $30.000 per habitant (just to give you an idea: The Republic of Congo has a GNP of $204) it is actually a lot more than ten years ago. Joint with Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg, Germany is one of the most popular immigration countries within the European Union. An incredible deal of 87% enjoy living in Germany a lot – a sign, that quality of life must be rather good in our country. Maybe that’s why, Germany is at the 22nd position of a ranking by the United Nations related to the living quality.

Only people from Berlin are not happy with the overall situation. Isn’t that just typical. If you were asking people from Starnberg, 86.1% would give you positive feedback on their living quality (they are the happiest people nationwide). But if you are focused on living in a city, a nucleated, urban area you should live in Stuttgart, Munich, Cologne or Hamburg where people are also quite happy according to the same survey.

text & photo by Eugen Braeunig