Lots of space, few apartments: where does the extreme housing shortage in Berlin come from?
Image: Picture Alliance
There is a shortage of apartments in Germany. Despite this, a lot of living space is still wasted. Politics is to blame. A guest post.
Why did people in the GDR always have to stand in line in front of grocery stores, while there were even bananas in the Federal Republic? Why was there always enough supply at gas stations and in retail stores in the Federal Republic and in western countries, while there was a lack of everything possible in the GDR and other communist countries?
The answer is the price caps that existed for practically everything in the GDR. You narrow down the supply. For companies in the Eastern bloc, the price cap was not an incentive to boost production. If something was in demand, it was hoarded under the counter as “bumped goods”. Only relatives and friends were allowed to buy it – or anyone who had western currency.