Berlin: The metropolis as a production space

Metropolitan regions can be regarded as economic areas comprising various s ub-economies with different forms of economic and spatial organization. The purpose of this article is to undertake a critical appraisal of the vision of Berlin as a 'service metropolis' through empirical observation of secto ral trends and locational patterns in the city, and to establish that Berli n's urban area is a major production space with a complex fabric of special ized production districts. This spatial organization will be examined in te rms of the level of agglomeration of various sub-economies with special ref erence to the formation of local enterprise clusters in the Berlin economic area. Berlin's specialization profile and the employment trend in the city compared with other metropolitan cities in Germany make it clear that the metropolis of Berlin is under threat as a production space, and this threat partly stems from the way in which the real estate business has developed in the Berlin area.