According to a survey, a lot of vacancy and too few public toilets cloud the shopping experience in three central Berlin shopping areas.
More than half of the visitors surveyed on the Hackescher Markt, the City West and Schlossstrasse in Steglitz miss more opportunities to facilitate themselves, as the Berlin Chamber of Commerce and Industry announced. The need for more public toilets around the Hackescher Höfe is particularly high.
The expansion of pedestrian zones and a greener redesign of the inner city areas also consider around 40 percent of those surveyed to be urgently necessary. The opinion of the respondents regarding better local transport connections and a limitation of car traffic is less clear. More than a third consider the latter measure to be superfluous, a good quarter is absolutely necessary.
Berlin’s popularity over the nationwide cut
Overall, the Berlin inner city areas come away well in a nationwide comparison. The respondents rated the shopping experience on average with a grade of 2.3, while the nationwide average was 2.5. “The good performance of the Berlin locations shows that the centers are still a place of encounter,” said IHK general manager Manja Schreiner. “Apparently the online trade – yet – does not change anything.” Politicians had to tackle creative usage concepts in the lack of vacancy.
The survey was carried out by the IFH Cologne Institute on behalf of the Berlin IHK, AG City, the Steglitz-Zehlendorf business development agency, the Pentanennex Society and the Berlin-Brandenburg trade association. In autumn 2024, around 1,000 passers -by were interviewed at each of the three locations.