Google drops project after Berliners object
BERLIN — What Google wants, Google usually gets, but in Berlin’s Kreuzberg neighborhood, residents have won a battle against the Internet giant, which backed away from a project in the face of local opposition.
Google had planned to convert an old electric company building in Kreuzberg into an incubator for tech startups, the kind of development that could have altered the fabric of the funky, multicultural area.
Instead, the company announced last week that after sinking millions of dollars into the project, it will make the space available, free, to nonprofit social service and local advocacy groups — a move its adversaries welcomed.
The decision handed a surprise victory to anti-gentrification groups who had protested Google’s plan, but some city officials saw it as a lost economic opportunity and a stain on Berlin’s vaunted tech-friendly reputation.
Kreuzberg has long been one of the most inexpensive areas of Berlin, making it a haven for students, immigrants, artists and activists, a hub of culture, night life and left-wing politics. But in a pattern repeated in similar neighborhoods in many of the world’s wealthiest cities, affluent people have moved in, too, in recent years, bringing with them the social tensions of gentrification.
“They push out the people who were here before,” said Achim Koppitsch, 60, who runs a vinyl record store in Kreuzberg. “You can’t find any more cool places — instead you get hipster cafes that roast their own beans.”
Residents opposed to the Kreuzberg project worried about tech salaries driving up rents in a neighborhood already dotted with new restaurants that local residents cannot afford. But reasons for the opposition went beyond gentrification: Some people were opposed to Google because of its data collection and tax avoidance practices.
Activist groups cropped up with names like No Google Campus, Counter Campus, Google Campus & Co Prevent, with ideologies ranging from neighborhood activism to anarchy.
“Because it was Google, it was always bigger than just an anti-gentrification fight,” said Konstantin Sergiou, a neighborhood activist who worked against the project. “We were lucky.”
The activists organized protest rallies, community discussions and, last month, even a short-lived occupation of the site. Kalabal!k, an organization and library devoted to anarchism, hosted bimonthly information sessions. At one event held at SO36, a venerated local nightclub, an activist from San Francisco talked about how the spread — and wealth — of Google and other tech companies had transformed her city.
In Berlin’s city government, opinion is split.
Sebastian Czaja, head of the pro-business Federal Democrats faction in Berlin’s House of Representatives, said Google’s retreat will discourage other companies from settling in the city, which bills itself as the startup capital of Europe.
“Even if the new use of the venue is welcome, the message to all future companies and investors is fatal: Do not come to Berlin, certainly not to Kreuzberg,” he said in a statement.