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Comment by jogundas | Hacker News Reader

A much more nuanced story can be told about Germany, see eg https://www.economist.com/europe/2019/10/31/germans-still-do... .

When it comes to the Tesla factory, it will be right outside Berlin https://www.dw.com/en/tesla-factory-outside-berlin-to-cost-4... .

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Berlin is in the east of Germany. I live in Berlin, and have considered cycling to Poland and back as a day trip.

One of my German coworkers remarks often that wages for any given job in former-DDR-areas are much lower than the same jobs in pre-reunification-Bundesrepublik-Deutschland-areas.

Berlin was both. Hence why they had to build the wall.

Yes, but the Tesla factory is “just outside” Berlin, so I didn’t feel that detail was important in this case.

West Berlin was a political enclave in DDR. ~150 km from the inner German border [1]. Just outside Berlin is pretty much ex-DDR territory. At the same time Berlin does have quite a strong foreign community and high migration, lately negative for Germans and positive for other ethnic groups [2]. It is the second largest city (by population) in Europe after London with much lower living costs [3]. Also Daimler and BMW have strong presence in Berlin. Those factors may have influenced the Tesla's decision a lot.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_German_border

[2] https://www.statistik-berlin-brandenburg.de/produkte/kleines...

[3] https://teleport.org/compare/berlin-and-london/

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