According to anti-gentrification activists in Berlin, other strategies for keeping rents low include hanging washing out to dry from apartment windows and having foreign-looking names on doorbells.
Wait yeah, to echo other commenter is this a tongue-in-cheek comment on how that fairly normal stuff is being perceived as "negative" due to racism/classism, OR is this an actual technique being used because it legitimately tends to have such an effect?
Yes. The reason it works is racism and classism; and you can use that fact to affect change in the desired direction.
It's like when a group of black guys have a traditionally white white guy with them to make the cops not bother them as much.
Serious question as a visitor to Berlin. Are there a large portion of people that do this on purpose for this express purpose? Is this actually a thing? I noticed quite a lot of graffiti.
Neighborhoods should be nice and inexpensive. One out of two isn't good enough for a goal.
Graffiti can be nice :)
Rather look at graffiti than adverts tbh.
In a previous thread with a similar topic @blibla@blibla@slrpnk.net linked a study that actually was able to support this claim: https://digitalcommons.newhaven.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2018&context=americanbusinessreview
I like art
grafitti raises rents because the owner has to hire someone to clean it off and that comes from my rent. same with not sorting your garbage properly. yes I'm salty about this, how could you tell
the owner has to hire someone to clean it off and that comes from my rent.
Rent has little to do with maintenance. If it did, it would mean that higher rent lead to more maintenance. This is not the case. Landlords are incentivised to maximise margins (rent minus expenses). If they don't have to pay for maintenance while getting a certain rent level, then they will opt for not maintaining.
Rent level is the maximum level that landlords will set to drain from their tenants. It has little to do with the maintenance or condition of the residence. There are plenty of examples that show poor housing standards being expensive.
The solution: Land Value Tax
There are some municipalities where landowners are required to remove graffiti in a timely fashion or be fined by the city. In such places, the landlord would definitely pass those costs to tenants. Not that they would lower rents if the problem went away, of course. One year of a graffiti problem would likely permanently raise rents unless you live somewhere with a glut of available affordable rentals.
Then you probably live in a middle class or rich neighbourhood.
Poorer neighbourhoods usually wouldn’t bother removing unless it was on a window.
i definitely don't. these apartments have not seen a renovation since the 60s. ventilation barely works, i have seen inside temps as high as 28 degrees, and as low as 17. but the rents pay for all the services. more services, more rent.
