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Berlin is better than most other places I've lived, but there is still so much room to improve. In my (sub-)district, pedestrians, cyclists, bars and trees shar

Berlin is better than most other places I've lived, but there is still so much room to improve. In my (sub-)district, pedestrians, cyclists, bars and trees share around 30% of the space on the street, while an additional 40% is parking and the last 30% is driving. The thing is, only around 35% of households here even own a car, and the vast majority of those probably just have it as a convenience. Public transport is quite good, and Berlin is super flat, so also really good for cycling. Very slowly things are moving in the right direction, but it is a constant fight against a loud minority and old local and federal rules favoring cars above all.

nicbou 4y ago
Like you said, things are improving. There is a slow move towards wide bike lanes and pedestrianised neighborhoods. I love where things are going!
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
I will throw Rome here, often overlooked when talking about this stuff, but Rome has the widest green area in Europe, parks, gardens, reserves, green areas in general cover more than 65% of the total surface, totaling 85,000 hectares (~850 km2). In Berlin in comparison only 30% of the city area is green spaces and woodland, totaling ~260km2. One of the reasons why Berlin population is 1.2 times larger than Rome, even though the surface of the city is only 70% of the Italian Capitol.
- emj 4y ago
  How was that calculated; populations and areas of cities are often calculated in very different ways. You have to show these things on a map and describe why you choose what area and how the population number was calculated. Just "what is a park" differs between cities, even what is a parking space is different. E.g. cars needs a lot of room around them on motorways, that areas is not always counted as "motorway" but can be counted as "green space" in some papers. I have not seen ANY good examples of comparisions between cities, but I know these problems comes up alot when we discuss cities here on HN.
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    I know a lot of people are skeptic about this, but I was surprised as well when I discovered how green Rome is. As a Roman, I also thought that Paris or Berlin were greener or bigger, they are not. > You have to show these things on a map Here it is Berlin and Rome, same zoom level on Google maps https://imgur.com/WU3dWEJ https://imgur.com/WU3dWEJ I've highlighted on the left the area that is actually Rome's territory, Google maps only highlights the area inside the "Grande raccordo anulare" [1], but the city of Rome extends much farther than that, also the area on the beach (the one called Ostia) is actually part of the city even though it is disconnected from it. That's Rome, the city, then there's the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital [2], which is much larger and includes many smaller municipalities around it, which is in turn smaller than Rome metropolitan area [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Raccordo_Anulare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Raccordo_Anulare [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_City_of_Rome_Capital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_City_of_Rome_Capi... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_metropolitan_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_metropolitan_area

nicbou 4y ago

Like you said, things are improving. There is a slow move towards wide bike lanes and pedestrianised neighborhoods. I love where things are going!

peoplefromibiza 4y ago

I will throw Rome here, often overlooked when talking about this stuff, but Rome has the widest green area in Europe, parks, gardens, reserves, green areas in general cover more than 65% of the total surface, totaling 85,000 hectares (~850 km2). In Berlin in comparison only 30% of the city area is green spaces and woodland, totaling ~260km2. One of the reasons why Berlin population is 1.2 times larger than Rome, even though the surface of the city is only 70% of the Italian Capitol.

emj 4y ago
How was that calculated; populations and areas of cities are often calculated in very different ways. You have to show these things on a map and describe why you choose what area and how the population number was calculated. Just "what is a park" differs between cities, even what is a parking space is different. E.g. cars needs a lot of room around them on motorways, that areas is not always counted as "motorway" but can be counted as "green space" in some papers. I have not seen ANY good examples of comparisions between cities, but I know these problems comes up alot when we discuss cities here on HN.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  I know a lot of people are skeptic about this, but I was surprised as well when I discovered how green Rome is. As a Roman, I also thought that Paris or Berlin were greener or bigger, they are not. > You have to show these things on a map Here it is Berlin and Rome, same zoom level on Google maps https://imgur.com/WU3dWEJ https://imgur.com/WU3dWEJ I've highlighted on the left the area that is actually Rome's territory, Google maps only highlights the area inside the "Grande raccordo anulare" [1], but the city of Rome extends much farther than that, also the area on the beach (the one called Ostia) is actually part of the city even though it is disconnected from it. That's Rome, the city, then there's the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital [2], which is much larger and includes many smaller municipalities around it, which is in turn smaller than Rome metropolitan area [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Raccordo_Anulare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Raccordo_Anulare [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_City_of_Rome_Capital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_City_of_Rome_Capi... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_metropolitan_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_metropolitan_area