Berlin district suffers from ‘tourist overload’

Berlin's once run-down district of Kreuzberg has been a symbol of Germany's celebrated alternative culture for decades. It revels in a reputation for riots, ethnic diversity, squatting and "scene" Bars and clubs. It has returned a Green MP to parliament for almost as long as its inhabitants can remember.

Now, however, the "right on" residents of arguably the German capital's hippest borough are up in arms over a new threat, posed not by eviction bailiffs, greedy developers or drug busting police, but an apparently insufferable tide of young, back-packing, budget flight tourists.

"The noise they make is unbearable, especially in the summer," complained one resident who lives near Kreuzberg's fashionable Bergmannstrasse in an interview with Der Spiegel magazine. "They play loud Techno music until the early hours of the morning and the children can't sleep."

Kreuzberg's residents complain that swarms of young twenty-something tourists invade the borough especially at weekends and in the summer to stay in an increasing number of cheap hostels or illicitly rented-out apartments. At night they flock to its trendy all-night Bars, which are advertised in guide books as a "must for party animals".

Source: The Independent