Comment by sentenza | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sentenza | Hacker News Reader

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I'd like to point out two things regarding the size of Frankfurt.

Frankfurt is no London and no Paris, this is clear. However, that's also related to the way in which Germany as a whole functions. The individual cities aren't all that big, but they are clustered in metropolitan areas.

If you live in the vicinity of Frankfurt, you can just drive to Heidelberg for a Saturday night out (about an hour). Or, if you're more interested in food, theater or classical music, you have a large selection from Mainz to Aschaffenburg, all of which is easily reachable from Frankfurt.

Equally, the pool of support staff you can draw from isn't recruited from the minuscule population of Frankfurt (700k), but from the whole metro region (5.5 million). I myself live at the outermost boundary of the metro region and know many people who commute to Frankfurt.

The second point is that the relatively small size of the city of Frankfurt is an asset in one critical regard: Frankfurt is first and foremost a banking city (and secondly an airport city). If banks want to exert some influence over policy there, they have all the leverage they could want. This is not the case in Paris.

Personally, I'd be surprised if there was anything other than a somewhat even split of relocations between Frankfurt and Paris. And I'm fairly certain that the TGV service between Frankfurt and Paris will also be extended beyond what exists today.

Frankfurt has very good train connections as well. Specifically to Cologne which is via the hi-speed tracks, but also to Amsterdam and Vienna.

One big advantage of Frankfurt is that Germans are much more open to speaking English than the French, and this is an advantage that should not be underestimated. If you don't speak German, but do speak English it's possible to live in Frankfurt. To live in Paris, you have to speak French.

Only Amsterdam (which has English as its official language next to Dutch) is better in that regard. In Amsterdam you don't even have to ask if someone speaks English (that's considered an insult, on the same level of asking someone whether they can read and write).

The language point you touch on cannot be stressed enough. I have first hand experience with this as I travel to Germany on a regular basis and find Germans much more accommodating language wise than the French.

I also have had first hand experience of staff at establishments in Paris simply refusing to speak English. All in all if I had to choose as a Londoner I would prefer to move to Frankfurt or Amsterdam over Paris any day of the week.

> If you don't speak German, but do speak English it's possible to live in Frankfurt. To live in Paris, you have to speak French.

I speak French, but not that well. First time I went to Paris ('94) it was indeed close to what you suggest, but my French-teacher was right about one thing: As long as you got the pronunciation right and tried people would fall over themselves to try to help you.

Last times I've been in Paris, on the other hand, people would impatiently interrupt me when I tried to practice my French, and switch to English. It was outright annoying, as it made it hard to improve.

The most inconvenienced I've ever been was in some little village in Provence a couple of decades ago, when a shopkeeper didn't understand my French. But he proceeded to stop random passers-by until he found one that was willing and able to translate.

> The individual cities aren't all that big, but they are clustered in metropolitan areas.

That's the same everywhere. London is a cluster. My suburb of London itself has about a dozen town centres.

> Frankfurt is first and foremost a banking city (and secondly an airport city)

That's great for employers, awful for employees.

> If you live in the vicinity of Frankfurt, you can just drive to Heidelberg for a Saturday night out (about an hour)

Driving for an hour is not attractive for going out whe working long hours. This is why you see bankers paying millions of pounds for small flats in London Docklands so they are close to both work and nightlife. People who are used to walking distance or a few minutes on the underground to get to work and the same to get to restaurants and nightclubs are not going to be impressed by an hour to get someone interesting.

> Equally, the pool of support staff you can draw from isn't recruited from the minuscule population of Frankfurt (700k), but from the whole metro region (5.5 million).

Nobody cares about the support staff. They're easy to hire and cheap. The banks cares about the traders they pay a million plus in base salary and similar levels in bonuses. If they are willing to move to Frankfurt, the banks will go there. If they say "no, I'll just go to bank Y instead - they have an office in Paris," the banks will go to Paris.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, the bank my ex works for maintains several offices because of individual traders that insist on living in specific places and who bring enough business to justify it.

> If banks want to exert some influence over policy there, they have all the leverage they could want. This is not the case in Paris.

Banks have plenty of leverage in London, which is much larger than both Paris and Frankfurt combined. If anything they will have more leverage in Paris because Frankfurt is real competition for Paris in a way neither Paris or Frankfurt has been for London.

I wonder why these elite traders don't want to come to Berlin, which has plenty of culture/nightlife/etc within short walking/subway distance of many central spots? Certainly more interesting than Frankfurt.

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