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Paris & Berlin – The tale of two cities (Part 1: The facts you can’t ignore)

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Re: Paris & Berlin – The tale of two cities (Part 1: The facts you can’t ignore)

#31

Post by fharper1961 »

drats wrote: post #25

Even Parisians often flee Paris because of red tape and taxes, so if you add a foreign accent, or poor to no French, into the mix you are likely going to be going at a snail's pace. Berlin is cheaper, friendlier to business, friendlier to English and just friendlier in general on the street. The cheapness translates as a factor for employees (their home), and the international orientation of the city allows you to dr…

In light of the significant advantages of Berlin are you going to be leaving Paris?

Re: Paris & Berlin – The tale of two cities (Part 1: The facts you can’t ignore)

#32

Post by andyking »

mseebach wrote: post #16
zeemonkee wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bureaucracy is ten years behind Finland. You still need to visit an office to get anything done instead of doing things over the browser I found this to be the case when moving to Finland; the amount of bureaucracy needed to get started as a foreigner, even one from the EU, is insane (from a British perspective). - register with tax office - register with KELA (you'd think registering as a taxpayer would be suffice…

Getting started as an EU foreigner in UK: - HMRC - Council tax - NI number - Local doctor - Voter registration Never mind that even doing all that, most companies still don't think you exist because you don't appear on credit checks. Granted, most of these can be done via mail (someone should really introduce the British public service to the interwebs one of these days), the bureaucracy in Berlin is hardly uniquely…

I 'love' the British voter registration process.

"You can do it online!" say the commercials.

Yes, you can fill in a form online, you're then presented with a PDF that you have to print off, sign, and post back to the local council office. Huh?

Re: Paris & Berlin – The tale of two cities (Part 1: The facts you can’t ignore)

#33

Post by ap22213 »

pimeys wrote: post #18
bergie wrote: post #4

I moved to Berlin from Helsinki (another regional start-up hub) last March: http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/hacker-nomadism/ There are several things that I've been positively surprised about: * Cost of living is really cheap. Now when I travel to France or Finland I feel everything is expensive there * Berlin is very well connected with rest of Europe (trains, flights) * The hacker scene here is great (huge meetups, etc)…

I moved to Berlin also from Helsinki last autumn to work in a start-up. What I should add to your list is the open-mindedness of the people: it is one of the most liberal places I've ever been. People are nice, the police won't arrest you so easily for spending a splendid day in a local park and of course the nightlife. When I visited Berkeley and New York this spring, it was really a joy to be back home.

Why would the police arrest you for spending a day in the park?

Re: Paris & Berlin – The tale of two cities (Part 1: The facts you can’t ignore)

#34

Post by pistoriusp »

I was in Berlin in December, with my fiance, to check it out as I was considering it as a potential place to work for a few a year or two.

It didn't resonate with me. But everyone has their own experiences. Below are some of the good and bad from my experiences:

1. Transportation is amazing. Not having a car is a non-issue. The most I waited for a train was 10 minutes.

Drinking and smoking are allowed in the underground stations. Personal freedom often trumped collective consciousness.

2. Rent is cheap. But I found the city rather ugly. When I asked a resident why they have so much "bad graffiti" she commented that it was to make it ugly. Further questioning and reasoning was that ugly correlates to cheaper rent.

3. So much dog shit. Perhaps because there are a lot of dogs. They are very well behaved. But the poo was everywhere.

4. We stayed in Kreuzburg. It's trendy. Which means that it's mostly occupied by unemployed artists. :P

5. I speak very poor German, but Berliners are incredibly friendly and mostly patient.

6. It doesn't really feel like a big city.

7. They had some nice galleries and museums. Architecturally I don't think I saw anything significant, or that sticks out in my mind.

Re: Paris & Berlin – The tale of two cities (Part 1: The facts you can’t ignore)

#35

Post by pimeys »

ap22213 wrote: post #33
pimeys wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved to Berlin also from Helsinki last autumn to work in a start-up. What I should add to your list is the open-mindedness of the people: it is one of the most liberal places I've ever been. People are nice, the police won't arrest you so easily for spending a splendid day in a local park and of course the nightlife. When I visited Berkeley and New York this spring, it was really a joy to be back home.

Why would the police arrest you for spending a day in the park?

If you like to drink beer or smoke cigarettes in a public park, for example. Or smoke weed.

Re: Paris & Berlin – The tale of two cities (Part 1: The facts you can’t ignore)

#36

Post by bane »

pimeys wrote: post #35
ap22213 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the police arrest you for spending a day in the park?

If you like to drink beer or smoke cigarettes in a public park, for example. Or smoke weed.

so basically doing things that are against the local laws

Re: Paris & Berlin – The tale of two cities (Part 1: The facts you can’t ignore)

#37

Post by Kototama »

drats wrote: post #25

Even Parisians often flee Paris because of red tape and taxes, so if you add a foreign accent, or poor to no French, into the mix you are likely going to be going at a snail's pace. Berlin is cheaper, friendlier to business, friendlier to English and just friendlier in general on the street. The cheapness translates as a factor for employees (their home), and the international orientation of the city allows you to dr…

I'd be fairly surprised if there was even a single metric on which Paris beats Berlin for anything business related

Like Paris having the biggest business center in Europe?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_D%C3%A9fense

Re: Paris & Berlin – The tale of two cities (Part 1: The facts you can’t ignore)

#38

Post by pimeys »

bane wrote: post #36
pimeys wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you like to drink beer or smoke cigarettes in a public park, for example. Or smoke weed.

so basically doing things that are against the local laws

It's not illegal to drink beer in public places (like the subways, parks, streets) and it's also legal to smoke tobacco in many places.

Weed is not legal, but it's tolerated and discriminated.

Re: Paris & Berlin – The tale of two cities (Part 1: The facts you can’t ignore)

#39

Post by pimeys »

pistoriusp wrote: post #34

I was in Berlin in December, with my fiance, to check it out as I was considering it as a potential place to work for a few a year or two. It didn't resonate with me. But everyone has their own experiences. Below are some of the good and bad from my experiences: 1. Transportation is amazing. Not having a car is a non-issue. The most I waited for a train was 10 minutes. Drinking and smoking are allowed in the undergro…

I really enjoy the graffiti in Berlin. It's because I've done so many underground rave parties and I'm fond of old factories, warehouses etc.

If you don't like that, I would then prefer Paris over Berlin.

Re: Paris & Berlin – The tale of two cities (Part 1: The facts you can’t ignore)

#40

Post by DanBC »

mseebach wrote: post #16
zeemonkee wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bureaucracy is ten years behind Finland. You still need to visit an office to get anything done instead of doing things over the browser I found this to be the case when moving to Finland; the amount of bureaucracy needed to get started as a foreigner, even one from the EU, is insane (from a British perspective). - register with tax office - register with KELA (you'd think registering as a taxpayer would be suffice…

Getting started as an EU foreigner in UK: - HMRC - Council tax - NI number - Local doctor - Voter registration Never mind that even doing all that, most companies still don't think you exist because you don't appear on credit checks. Granted, most of these can be done via mail (someone should really introduce the British public service to the interwebs one of these days), the bureaucracy in Berlin is hardly uniquely…

There's a very frustrating mix of "concern for privacy" vs "being effective".

All these different agencies have their own databases (with slightly different fields making transfer of data between them a bit tricky) and they're not allowed to communicate apart from a few limited examples.

To get anything done I need to fill out a form, on paper. That same information needs to be filled out across many different forms, to different agencies. It's so bad that sometimes one form asks for the same information (address, date of birth) twice.

I'm not sure how governments could kludge all that data into one big database and protect people from hideous privacy violations that result.

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