Berlin is the capital and biggest city of Germany located in the east of the country. With its character as multi-ethnic and multi-functional city and its 3.75 million inhabitants Berlin is a magnet for people and business, a city that is growing and changing. Shaping the future of Berlin as a growing green metropolis is a task that touches social, economic and environmental issues at the same time.

ECS in Berlin are mostly a bottom-up movement. There are hundreds of garden and allotment communities spread all over the city. Particularly gardens are creating places for the neighborhood to meet, zones for biodiversity and extracurricular education venues. Thus these spots are valuable for the social city development.

Berlin is the only city in the consortium with the hybrid role of a Front Runner City (FRC) and a Follower City (FC). As a Follower City Berlin will take the chance of the Masterplan to develop new and enhance existing ECS. While being a Front Runner City, Berlin with its large experience in community gardening will develop a garden living lab in the tension field of urban expanse, need for multifunctional urban green and the challenge of social inclusion. Berlin and PRINZ plan two locations for the implementation of the living lab Berlin: the community garden “Gutsgarten Hellersdorf” and the community garden at the New St. Jacobi Cemetery Neukölln. The target areas are always the socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods of the programme Social Cohesion.

The City Team Berlin consist of three subgroups - one for the development of the masterplan and one for each of the living lab sites.

• City Team Masterplan (FC)
• City Team Hellersdorf (FRC)
• City Team Neukölln (FRC)