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Worth Living
 Living between town and country

Living together in town and country Illustration: Tobias Schrank © Goethe-Institut

Where to live?

Boarded-up Houses © Katharina Fitz

Photos from Manchester and Liverpool
 Boarded-up Houses

Katharina Fitz has been searching for empty houses in Liverpool and Manchester. Her photos highlight a problem that goes far beyond the former industrial cities.
A digital nomad with no office in Ko Lanta, Thailand Max Pixel | Creative Commons Zero - CC0

Life as a digital nomad
 When the world is the better office

Working on a train in India, video conferencing on Skype from a beach in Thailand, enjoying an after-work apéritif in a new city every week – digital nomads make the most of the new technologies to see the world, earning their daily bread as they go.

Living differently

Beyond the grey: a different way to live. Photo (detail): © picture alliance / dpa / Jens Wolf

House beautiful
 Ten creative living spaces, made in Germany

A different way to live: unconventional and whimsical ideas from Germany.
Using the heat of the sun to heat the house and the water Photo (detail): © Pierre-Yves Brunaud

Ecological Housing
Green Building to Save the Planet

The building sector accounts for roughly one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions. New energy-efficient and environmentally sound construction and renovation methods are finally catching on in France.
Street battle in Frankfurt am Main in 1974 Photo (detail): © picture-alliance/dpa/Joachim Litzenberger - PA: 29407300

Squatters
 Civil unrest in Germany

Affordable housing has become scarce in many German cities, where skyrocketing rents are displacing low-income residents to the outskirts. The problem is by no means new though: In the 1970s and 1980s, people in Germany waged fierce battles against investors, building by contested building.

Rent or buy?

Germany - Nation of tenants © Goethe-Institut e. V., Internet-Redaktion

Explanatory video
 Germany – Nation of tenants

Germans prefer to rent rather than buy a flat. Our video explains why.
Street of houses in Berlin (qd.) Photo (detail): © Adobe

Berlin’s housing market
 Airbnb – a Blessing or a Curse?

Is the online Airbnb flat sharing platform making Berlin’s housing shortage worse? Three students analysed the data to help answer this question. And reached some surprising conclusions.
The rent control law Photo (detail): © Adobe

Germany’s housing market
 “The rent control law rarely works”

The German rent control law known as the “Mietpreisbremse” or literally the “rent brake” was designed to slow rising housing costs, but has not really solved the problem. In an interview, economic researcher Claus Michelsen talks about some other approaches that might rein in soaring rents.

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