That's the wrong question. This is about culture, not tallying. Berlin is special because it's a chaotic city in a country of orderliness.
I started writing a list, but it doesn't do it any justice. Just like listing 10 big companies won't circumscribe the feel of Silicon Valley, a list of goofiness won't peg Berlin. But hang out in Kreuzberg for a weekend and you'll get it. :-)
Berlin is still living on the energy from the wall coming down almost 20 years ago. The west side was long a quirky occupied island hundreds of kilometers behind the iron curtain and the east was the first place where people rebelled and started down the path that reunited the city.
(Note: I've visited 28 countries and lived in 8 cities, so this isn't just cheering for the home team.)
Wouldn't breaking the rules, if it were truly that general, result in something more substantial than goofiness? And if it's just goofiness, perhaps a better way to put it would be "break the social conventions".
It might seem like I'm being contentious just for its own sake, but I'm not. It's precisely the thing that most irks me about Western Europe: the attitude of "don't break the rules". Europeans seem to like to break rules that are obsolete or largely inconsequential (e.g. about drugs and sexuality). And they're very proud of that. But the big and important rules, like those of business and broad social order, are universally accepted to the point where they are seen as morals.
It's a mix here. There's definitely a bohemian atmosphere (in many, not all parts of the city), but reducing that to sex and drugs isn't really fair. It extends to arts, street culture, work environments, etc. I think I see what you're getting at though, so I'll give a few specific examples of rules that are broken here:
- "Living in a big cultural center is expensive." It's cheap here. I don't know of any other western cultural center where that's true. 3.5 million people and there's a housing surplus. This has a huge effect on the city.
- "You need a lot of money." A side-effect of the above, there's a real de-emphasis on having cash here.
- "You should have a normal job." For good and bad, there's not much big industry in Berlin. Most of my friends either work independently or in relatively small companies. Most of those companies aren't startups in the sense that we use the word here, but small businesses that do well enough.
- "You need to grow up." You can still go out here when you're 30. Or 40. And it's not weird. And it doesn't mean you're not professional. Similarly, there doesn't seem to be the taboo against founding a startup over 30 (I'm 27 and one of the younger guys at the meetups I've been going to.).
A lot of people left West Berlin when the city was divided and a lot of people left East Berlin right after reunification. The massive housing surplus that resulted caused housing costs to sink and cheap housing made the city a mecca for alternative culture. Cost of living probably doesn't even hit a quarter of Paris or London.
Here's an article from 6 years ago that's somewhat dated, but still gives you a feel for things good and bad:
we are running a music-related startup out of berlin (soundcloud.com) and it's really great in terms of costs & quality of life. If you're in Berlin, make sure you have business elsewhere, because the city in itself is quite poor. It's almost like outsourcing to east Europe, but you have a lot of credibility in the west still...
