The Prenzlauerbergers are dying out
Jun. 1st, 2006 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusHere's an image of a wallpaper shop. Not your typical wallpaper shop, admittedly; this one looks more like a hip record store, strips of retro wallpaper in the window taking the place of the latest indie releases on boutique labels like Tomlab or Staubgold. ExtraTapete is in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin. And standing before the store admiring its tasteful paper designs you can see one of the well-educated, well-dressed young women who make up a large percentage of the area's population.
Ah, Prenzlauer Berg! Lovely, leafy Prenzlauer Berg! Place of elegant cafes, organic vegetable markets, Slow Life and push-chairs. It's where I am right now, and as I write I can hear the voices of children on the stair. Children are the Little Princes of Prenzlauer Berg. They strut around astride little wooden bikes -- ethical toys! -- or perch on the back of the big black Dutch bicycles their parents ride up and down the sacrosanct cycle paths. They're usually toddlers, cute and cool and so German, relaxed bobo hippy children. Their parents seem to be self-employed; they're always ready to meet their kids at pre-school at 3pm and take them to play in the gardens on Helmholtz Platz.
Prenzlauer Berg is Berlin's yuppie baby boom area, the place where cool 20- and 30-somethings come to breed. It's where my friends Eric and Antonia live, with their children Lucas and Roxy. It's where other couple-friends of mine have headed to spawn, sooner or later, little Berlin-lings and Berlin-ettes, new baby Berliners.
But, according to an article in last week's Exberliner, the Germans are dying out. They're dying out because they're failing to reach the "replacement level" of 2.1 births per couple. And it's precisely in districts like Prenzlauer Berg that they're dying out fastest, for Prenzlauer Berg is full of university graduates, the group least keen to reproduce.
"Prenzlauer Berg's reported baby boom is a myth, according to the Berlin Institute for Demography, attributable largely to journalists misinterpreting birth rate figures and seeing playgrounds teeming with toddlers," Exberliner reports. "The Berlin Institute says Prenzlauer Berg is in reality one of Berlin's least fertile districts. Just 35 children per every 1000 women were born there in 2003.... Steffen Kröhnert of the Berlin Institute says that Prenzlauer Berg's figures look high at first glance because the district is home to a disproportionately large number of young women of child-bearing age. (There are twice as many women of this age [15-40] in Prenzlauer Berg as there are in Cloppenburg, for example.) "What this means is that it took double the number of women in Prenzlauer Berg to produce approximately the same amount of children as there are in Cloppenburg," says Kröhnert. "If this trend were to continue in the long term, then the number of people in Prenzlauer Berg would decrease by half with every generation. This can hardly be described as a model for the future."
Now, I seem to be attracted to places with this sort of dwindling birth scenario. As Marxy liked to point out back in his "terminal decline" days, Japan also has a serious demographic problem, with the old staying alive ever-longer, and not enough young coming along to replace them. In a recent BBC Radio 4 documentary about Japan, the message was clear: Japanese women in their 20s and 30s are increasingly preferring lapdogs to babies. It's certainly true of my friend Reika.
Of course, I'm not helping either. I haven't reproduced. I'm not sure I want to. Much as I adore my sister's kids (and, with three, she's actually increasing the population of Scotland), I don't feel children would be compatible with my glamorously uprooted lifestyle. The way I live now, I can't afford them. The Momuses are dying out, just like the Germans and the Japanese.
I take comfort in the idea, though, that, even if there are no Momuses, Germans or Japanese in the world at some future point, the idea of Momus-ness, German-ness and Japanese-ness will still be available, as essences, cultural identities, ways of thinking, living, eating, being. Synthetic lifestyles for the children who are now being born to plug into, should they want to. Of course, should they do that effectively, these kids will, themselves, fall into genetic decline, becoming, as Morrissey sings, "the last of the family line". That's something university graduates, lapdog lovers, Prenzlauer Bergers and Momuses have in common: we're all "sterilizers".
Ah, Prenzlauer Berg! Lovely, leafy Prenzlauer Berg! Place of elegant cafes, organic vegetable markets, Slow Life and push-chairs. It's where I am right now, and as I write I can hear the voices of children on the stair. Children are the Little Princes of Prenzlauer Berg. They strut around astride little wooden bikes -- ethical toys! -- or perch on the back of the big black Dutch bicycles their parents ride up and down the sacrosanct cycle paths. They're usually toddlers, cute and cool and so German, relaxed bobo hippy children. Their parents seem to be self-employed; they're always ready to meet their kids at pre-school at 3pm and take them to play in the gardens on Helmholtz Platz.
Prenzlauer Berg is Berlin's yuppie baby boom area, the place where cool 20- and 30-somethings come to breed. It's where my friends Eric and Antonia live, with their children Lucas and Roxy. It's where other couple-friends of mine have headed to spawn, sooner or later, little Berlin-lings and Berlin-ettes, new baby Berliners.
But, according to an article in last week's Exberliner, the Germans are dying out. They're dying out because they're failing to reach the "replacement level" of 2.1 births per couple. And it's precisely in districts like Prenzlauer Berg that they're dying out fastest, for Prenzlauer Berg is full of university graduates, the group least keen to reproduce.
"Prenzlauer Berg's reported baby boom is a myth, according to the Berlin Institute for Demography, attributable largely to journalists misinterpreting birth rate figures and seeing playgrounds teeming with toddlers," Exberliner reports. "The Berlin Institute says Prenzlauer Berg is in reality one of Berlin's least fertile districts. Just 35 children per every 1000 women were born there in 2003.... Steffen Kröhnert of the Berlin Institute says that Prenzlauer Berg's figures look high at first glance because the district is home to a disproportionately large number of young women of child-bearing age. (There are twice as many women of this age [15-40] in Prenzlauer Berg as there are in Cloppenburg, for example.) "What this means is that it took double the number of women in Prenzlauer Berg to produce approximately the same amount of children as there are in Cloppenburg," says Kröhnert. "If this trend were to continue in the long term, then the number of people in Prenzlauer Berg would decrease by half with every generation. This can hardly be described as a model for the future."
Now, I seem to be attracted to places with this sort of dwindling birth scenario. As Marxy liked to point out back in his "terminal decline" days, Japan also has a serious demographic problem, with the old staying alive ever-longer, and not enough young coming along to replace them. In a recent BBC Radio 4 documentary about Japan, the message was clear: Japanese women in their 20s and 30s are increasingly preferring lapdogs to babies. It's certainly true of my friend Reika.Of course, I'm not helping either. I haven't reproduced. I'm not sure I want to. Much as I adore my sister's kids (and, with three, she's actually increasing the population of Scotland), I don't feel children would be compatible with my glamorously uprooted lifestyle. The way I live now, I can't afford them. The Momuses are dying out, just like the Germans and the Japanese.I take comfort in the idea, though, that, even if there are no Momuses, Germans or Japanese in the world at some future point, the idea of Momus-ness, German-ness and Japanese-ness will still be available, as essences, cultural identities, ways of thinking, living, eating, being. Synthetic lifestyles for the children who are now being born to plug into, should they want to. Of course, should they do that effectively, these kids will, themselves, fall into genetic decline, becoming, as Morrissey sings, "the last of the family line". That's something university graduates, lapdog lovers, Prenzlauer Bergers and Momuses have in common: we're all "sterilizers".
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Re: i wish
Date: 2006-06-01 09:02 pm (UTC)It's the cultural DNA, the "signature specification" of Momus. It's very difficult to specify, though. "You know it when you see it," that's all. "This reminds me of Momus!" It's usually just one aspect. Sometimes I can recognize bits of "Momusness" in other artists, like Divine Comedy or Toog. But there's always some crucial difference. Then again, I suppose the same is true of biological DNA. Children might resemble their parents, but there's always some new element, some difference.
fumiko-ness can be really like old woman staying in her small house with pints of tea talking to cats.
Ha, I like that! Perhaps nobody would recognize the similarity except you! Suddenly you would feel you had found the "objective correlative" of your true essence in another person of quite a different age and appearance, perhaps. An "elective affinity"!
i have "momus" friend in myspace, is that real you?
No, that's someone hijacking my cultural DNA! Cloning me! Stealing my identity! I suppose it's what I want, but they could at least wait until I'm dead before pretending to be me! Oh, but wait, children don't wait until their parents are dead to look like them... Maybe it's okay...
Re: i wish
Date: 2006-06-02 02:39 am (UTC)there is simillar "charactor like effect" between you and her. kind of repeatable image. i mean, by repeating the same look, you became a charactor. when tintin wear eye patch, it becomes momus! amazing!
"fumiko-ness" likes hide&seek.mostly hiding.loves people but as soon as i arrive in the party, i want to go home. can not bear superficial conversation.im bored of "oh,right, ah,im going to get another drink"and never come back type of people. i prefer one to one tea time.i dont know how people are imaging from my image though."death of the author?" yeah, it is it, your image too!
Re: i wish
Date: 2006-06-02 09:15 pm (UTC)Maybe at the very depths of "Momus-ness" there is a copy of "Devoto-ness" in the very centre of its dark bunny loving heart?