# Berlin - city center vs outskirts vs suburbs?



## dexter18

Hi - I live in the US currently, with my wife and 7 year old son, but am considering a role in Berlin that I'm currently discussing with a company based in Berlin. The company's office is based in the central part of Berlin.

My question is about what area of Berlin to live in. I don't know much about Berlin yet - from the apartment rental sites I've seen, it looks like Berlin is a very nice city. Is the city itself a good environment for families with children? Good access to schools? (in particular international schools?) My wife and I think of ourselves as urban city dwellers (we've lived both in Chicago and San Francisco and loved them), but the last 7 years since our son was born we've definitely lived a little more suburban.

What are the suburban areas around Berlin like? Does transit extend out to the suburban areas? Do the suburban areas have good retail coverage? 

My sense is that we'd want to live more in the city proper, but with a young child we'd like to consider places farther out that might offer more space. But I don't know how easy that is to attain, and if there are significant downsides to living farther out. 

Thanks for any thoughts you might have on this!
Dexter


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## ALKB

dexter18 said:


> Hi - I live in the US currently, with my wife and 7 year old son, but am considering a role in Berlin that I'm currently discussing with a company based in Berlin. The company's office is based in the central part of Berlin.
> 
> My question is about what area of Berlin to live in. I don't know much about Berlin yet - from the apartment rental sites I've seen, it looks like Berlin is a very nice city. Is the city itself a good environment for families with children? Good access to schools? (in particular international schools?) My wife and I think of ourselves as urban city dwellers (we've lived both in Chicago and San Francisco and loved them), but the last 7 years since our son was born we've definitely lived a little more suburban.
> 
> What are the suburban areas around Berlin like? Does transit extend out to the suburban areas? Do the suburban areas have good retail coverage?
> 
> My sense is that we'd want to live more in the city proper, but with a young child we'd like to consider places farther out that might offer more space. But I don't know how easy that is to attain, and if there are significant downsides to living farther out.
> 
> Thanks for any thoughts you might have on this!
> Dexter




Berlin is a very nice place to live 

Rents in the city centre are definitely much more expensive than in areas a bit further out. BUT once you get to the very leafy parts with big gardens, rents go up again.

It is hard to tell you "live in the city centre" or "live in the outskirts" because every part has its own character.

In general, living in the east is less expensive than in the west (apart from the city centre part and Prenzlauer Berg). 

Where would you be working? How long of a commute are you willing to accept? What is your budget for rent?

Many apartments have communal outside space, often with a small (or big, depending on the size of the building) playground. There are also quite a big number of flats with private gardens but expect to pay a premium for that.

We have quite a few international private schools and bilingual Europa state schools, which are free but ask for a voluntary donation of about €250 per year, I think to cover bilingual activities that a normal state school would not offer. These bilingual schools have two branches, an English-speaking one with intensive German lessons for native speakers and a German branch for the German catchment area kids with intensive English lessons. I know several parents with children at the bilingual Europa schools and they are very, very happy with the schools. One family had initially tried the Berlin British School (private) and they prefer the bilingual state one.

There is also the John-F-Kennedy School, which is partly sponsored by the US-government and offers either US-curriculum or more German/international school curriculum. Very, very hard to get into, though.

All of the English medium schools are in the west of Berlin.

Public transport is excellent and the entire city is well-covered. It is also quite easy to get to the surrounding areas of Brandenburg by trains, bus, etc. but trains and busses don't run as frequently as within Berlin. 

I never had a car in my life and I always had several supermarkets in walking distance wherever I lived in Berlin. If you live in a strict one-family-home area, you might have to have a car but you should still have several supermarkets reachable in five to ten minutes by car.

You will find that every area has its own little centre. Berlin is essentially made up of 52 villages and many cases you can still see the original village with church, pond and historic houses. These "villages" are very, very attractive places to live in.


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## Nononymous

Berlin is a fairly awesome place to have kids.

It's nothing like an American city, in the sense of suburbs versus inner city and all that. A very good thing, really, since suburbs are ****e on every conceivable level. Get away from the idea that you need to live in the burbs if you have a kid. This is absolutely not the case in Europe. (I could rant on at great length here about how fundamentally broken this whole idea is on our side of the pond, but I'll try to keep it under control.) 

Rents are still pretty reasonable in the city centre. One key question - how is your German? If it's not good, you probably want to live in a more expat-plagued area so that you can more easily function in English. (I mean "plagued" only semi-sarcastically. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to use my fluent German in some parts of town, which annoys me.) So look at central neighbourhoods near your work: Kreuzberg, Schöneberg, Friedrichshain, Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg, maybe Charlottenberg/WIlmdersdorf too. Going further out is pretty dull.

To repeat: do NOT think of Berlin as being anything like an North American city. You do not need houses and yards and cars and shopping centres to raise children. (I will not pull punches - Europe is fundamentally a better place to live with kids.) There are parks and playgrounds everywhere. Once your kid makes friends, they will play unsupervised in the street, which is awesome because they will grow up to be independent and know how to do things like go to stores and use public transit by themselves, at the age of seven. 

You probably won't need a car, as transit is excellent and the city is very bike friendly. But the new car-sharing services are useful for emergencies. I was quite happy with DriveNow; unlike Car2Go, you can carry more than one passenger.

Yes I'm ranting here. We just returned from five months in Berlin, where my 13-year-old daughter had a blast and really misses the freedom of getting anywhere and everywhere by herself on the U-Bahn. (Imagine this - you meet friends somewhere in town for dinner, you want to have another couple of drinks with them after, the kid is bored, so you send her home by herself! Imagine this - never driving to to soccer practice because they get there by themselves!)

Schools. At age 7, you could just toss him into a regular school. He'll have German within a few months. If you go this route and are planning to stay long-term, you'll want to be careful so that he doesn't fall behind when kids are streamed into Gymnasium, but that's a few years down the road. Otherwise there are bilingual options, such as the Europa schools, the JFK school, and also the Mandela Schule in Wilmersdorf. No need to spend money on private/international schools, they are expensive and full of spoiled snobby brats.


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## expatgal

dexter18 said:


> Hi - I live in the US currently, with my wife and 7 year old son, but am considering a role in Berlin that I'm currently discussing with a company based in Berlin. The company's office is based in the central part of Berlin.
> 
> My question is about what area of Berlin to live in. I don't know much about Berlin yet - from the apartment rental sites I've seen, it looks like Berlin is a very nice city. Is the city itself a good environment for families with children? Good access to schools? (in particular international schools?) My wife and I think of ourselves as urban city dwellers (we've lived both in Chicago and San Francisco and loved them), but the last 7 years since our son was born we've definitely lived a little more suburban.
> 
> What are the suburban areas around Berlin like? Does transit extend out to the suburban areas? Do the suburban areas have good retail coverage?
> 
> My sense is that we'd want to live more in the city proper, but with a young child we'd like to consider places farther out that might offer more space. But I don't know how easy that is to attain, and if there are significant downsides to living farther out.
> 
> Thanks for any thoughts you might have on this!
> Dexter


You've been given wonderful and very thought out suggestions.
In this day and age, and being busier than ever, it may be best to live in the city. Your son is the age where he WILL pick up the language, never under estimate their ability. In fact, he will become fluent within a short period of time, and you...never will be, just a fact.
I am of the mind that it is best to live where life will be easier, which means, commute time, available transport, shopping, access to friends and activities, for your son.
Do you know the saying "Happy wife, happy life?", now add your son... "Happy son, happy wife and happy life"
What an exciting time for you and your family!


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## klausthaler

As Berlin is still quite cheap try to move to the more centralized areas like Prenzlauer Berg (famous for young families), Friedrichshain, etc. 
If you want to live in a house then you need to look for the outskirts and commute with the S-Bahn.
But luckily Berlin does not have one city center, but many different "Kieze" that are basically all little cities of their own.


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## Ben Abel

Berlin has many centres, there is no 1 city centre.
Because of the separation there is at least one in the west (Charlottenburg / Wilmersdorf / Tiergarten) and one in the East (Mitte - Alexanderplatz area). The new (and historic) centre is Mitte (potsdamer Platz area). You hafe nice districts where students and expats are living, Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg or Neukölln. 
Also interesting the more "native" berlin, Schöneberg, Steglitz.. Plenty to chose from, not too expensive rents in neither area (expect Mitte maybe). 

So absolutely NOOOO need to move to the suburbs if you work in the centre. !!


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