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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Could Berlin not buy the public toilets from the billboard provider and pay to operate them? Why are we relying on an advertising business for public toilets? They’re…public?

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Well, it could buy them. If they had money left to spend. But Berlin pays for a lot of public services already because it is operated by politicians who cater to the same public that favors removing bill boards. As a result e.g. they just bought all privately operated power plants for billions. They also heavily subsidize public transport tickets because it is popular. And they employ a large public staff in the city‘s administration but still cannot maintain a good quality of service despite all the billions spent (you wait weeks for appointments).

Berlin is a text book example of how turning everything into public goods and spending a lot of tax money is not necessarily in the interest of the citizens IMHO.

Germany actually has an extremely small public sector at 12.9% of all people in the workforce. Compare to neighboring countries like the Czech Republic (15.4%), Poland (23.6%) or Denmark (30.2%).

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_se...

Are you saying that Berlin is an outlier in Germany, then? My perception (looking from outside) has always been that their public sector is just completely understaffed.

Not that I am saying your argument is wrong, but I'd be wary of comparing such vaguely defined stats across countries. What does and doesn't count as public sector is going to vary wildly and so will how much of publicly funded work is done by direct employees vs. contractors. Statistics can lie as easily as they can give you useful info.

Berlin has a work force of about 2.2 million people. 305k of those work for the public sector. That’s about 13.8% so above Germany’s average. However, it’s not only important how much people work for the government but also how much it pays them. And Berlin pays much better salaries than other eastern German states. 24 years ago salaries in Eastern Berlin were increased to match those payed to western Berlin employees (instead of meeting in between). So for many years the city payed waaay more than its surrounding German member state to its staff. This financial issue is amplified by the fact Berlin now has to pay much higher pensions on average for its retired personnel.

»they just bought all privately operated power plants for billions«

No, Berlin brought only the previously privatized district heating (Fernwärme) back (https://www.rbb24.de/panorama/beitrag/2024/05/berlin-fernwae...). Because that is a monopoly and Berliners got ripped off by a private company.

All of Berlin‘s district heating plants provide heat AND electricity. So the government owns a huge share of all electricity producers in this city now, too (about 60 % of the total production capacity).

Whether this constitutes a monopoly is beside the point. Berlin paid 1.4 billions is does not really have (after it sold it 20 years ago when it had even less money and could not sustain a profitable business operation) and which does not solve a problem we really have. And now it will need to invest even more money to future-proof this acquisition.

Because they're expensive and Berlin doesn't have money. They were also coin operated and thus frequently broken into and out of service because of that. They mostly have contactless pay now, which has disadvantages as well because its less accessible (especially for children and senior people).

The capital of Germany with almost 3.85 million people (one of the EU’s most populous cities) and it cannot afford public toilets.

Thanks for sharing ground truth, despite it being exceptionally depressing.

Berlin has the disadvantage of historically being an enclave of Western Germany in the communist GDR, very hard/expensive to supply as a result and always at risk of the commies forcibly annexing it. No large (and thus: tax-paying) company wanted to set up its headquarters there for that reason, and additionally as it was an enclave there was no place for industry to set up production facilities.

Nowadays, Berlin has a shit ton of "startups" HQ'd there, but they pay barely any taxes compared to production industry heavyweights.

Berlin’s economy is unique for a major capital. Berlin is one of the weaker states economically in Germany. Mostly an effect of the division when most major industry left towards a place where the Soviet Army is not 5 minutes away and the city might be cut off from supplies at any moment. It’s been getting better but only recently the GDP per capita of Berlin rose above that of Germany overall.

This was radically different before World War 2. In 1938 Berlin made up 10% of GDP (and Germany was bigger back then). Major companies like Lufthansa and Deutsche Bank were headquartered in Berlin. It was the center of the new Electrical industry being home of both Siemens and AEG.

Berlin can afford to have free public toilets when significantly poorer cities can. And yes, not charging for use can actually reduce the overal operating cost more than what you would have gained from the fee.

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