Neukölln is the former working-class southern Berlin district that became the symbolic centre of Berlin's 2010s gentrification and the city's most-quoted multicultural neighbourhood. The district covers 12 sq km and 165,000 residents in the northern half (the inner 'Nord-Neukölln' between the Landwehrkanal and the Ringbahn S-Bahn) and a more suburban southern half (Britz, Buckow, Rudow). Neukölln was developed as a Wilhelmine working-class quarter 1880-1920; it was the destination of large waves of Turkish, Arabic and Balkan immigration from the 1960s; in the 2010s it gentrified faster than any other inner Berlin neighbourhood. Walking Neukölln is walking 140 years of immigrant and working-class Berlin layered with a 15-year gentrification veneer.
The Wilhelmine working-class build-out (1880-1920)
The area south of the old Berlin walls was farmland until the 1860s - the Rixdorf village (today's central Neukölln) was a Bohemian Protestant refugee settlement founded by Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia in 1737. The dramatic change came in the 1880s with the Wilhelmine industrial boom: the area south of the Landwehrkanal was developed as a dense working-class quarter to house the workforce of the new engineering and machine-tool factories. The street grid was laid out 1880-1900 with the typical 5-6 storey Mietskasernen (rental tenement) construction. The U-Bahn arrived in stages 1924-1927. In 1912 Rixdorf was renamed Neukölln ('New Kölln') by the city council to escape the working-class reputation of the old name. In 1920 Neukölln was incorporated into Greater Berlin.
The Tempelhof Airport era (1923-2008)
Tempelhof Airport opened in 1923 on the parade ground south of the Landwehrkanal - one of the first commercial airports in Europe. The 1936-1941 Nazi expansion (Ernst Sagebiel architect) created the massive 1.2-km horseshoe terminal building still standing today - planned as the gateway to Hitler's projected 'Germania' capital, one of the largest buildings in Europe by footprint. After WWII the airport played the central role in the 1948-49 Berlin Airlift: when the Soviet Union blockaded West Berlin (24 June 1948 - 12 May 1949), the United States and Britain supplied the western enclave entirely by air, with C-54 cargo planes landing at Tempelhof every 90 seconds for 15 months, delivering 2.3 million tons of food, coal and supplies. The 'Rosinenbomber' ('raisin bombers' - the candy that American pilots dropped to West Berlin children) became one of the symbolic moments of the early Cold War. Tempelhof continued as a US military and commercial airport through the Cold War, closed in 2008, and reopened as Tempelhofer Feld park in 2010. The 2014 referendum permanently blocked any housing development - the field is preserved forever as the largest inner-city park in the world.
The immigrant wave (1960s-2010s)
From the 1960s onwards Neukölln became one of Berlin's main destination districts for immigrant workers. The Turkish guest-worker (Gastarbeiter) immigration of 1961-1973 settled disproportionately along Karl-Marx-Strasse and Hermannstrasse; the 1990s Balkan refugees (Bosnian, Albanian, Kosovar) settled across the district; the 2000s Arabic immigration (Lebanese, Palestinian, Syrian) concentrated along Sonnenallee; the 2015-2017 Syrian refugee wave (about 130,000 Syrians admitted to Berlin during the humanitarian programme) settled heavily in northern Neukölln, making Sonnenallee the canonical 'Arab Street' of Berlin. By 2020 about 40% of Neukölln residents were first or second-generation immigrants - the highest concentration in central Berlin. The district is multilingual on the street: Turkish, Arabic, German, English, and increasingly the international gentrifier languages (Spanish, Italian, French) overlap.
The 1925-1930 Bruno Taut housing reform
The southern (suburban) half of Neukölln holds one of the most-celebrated achievements of 20th-century social housing: the Britz Hufeisensiedlung (Horseshoe Estate, 1925-1930) by Bruno Taut and Martin Wagner. The estate is one of six 'Berlin Modernism Housing Estates' inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008 (the others are Falkenberg 1913-15, Schillerpark in Wedding 1924-30, Carl Legien in Prenzlauer Berg 1928-30, Weiße Stadt in Reinickendorf 1929-31, and Onkel-Toms-Hütte in Zehlendorf 1926-32). The Hufeisensiedlung is the most iconic - a 350-metre horseshoe of 350 apartments around a sunken pond and green centre, painted in Taut's signature colours (blue doors, red gables, white walls, green window frames). The estate was built as social housing for working-class Berliners and remains social housing today - you can walk the courtyard freely, but the apartments are not open. Other notable Neukölln modernism: the Wohnstadt Carl Legien (1928-30 Taut/Wagner in northern Neukölln, also UNESCO) and the BBR Britz estate.
The 2010-2025 gentrification
Neukölln's 2010-2025 gentrification was the fastest of any Berlin district. The combination of cheap rents (€6/sq m in 2010), central location, intact architectural fabric, and the cultural cachet of next-door Kreuzberg drew an enormous wave of international gentrifiers - by 2015 the rents had doubled, by 2020 quadrupled, by 2025 they had reached parity with Kreuzberg and Prenzlauer Berg. The Reuterkiez (north Neukölln, between the canal and Sonnenallee) was the first wave 2005-2012; the Schillerkiez (south of Tempelhofer Feld) was the second wave 2012-2018; the inner Hermannstrasse-and-Boddinstrasse zone was the third wave 2018-2024. The visible gentrification: the natural-wine bars on Weserstrasse, the third-wave coffee shops on Pannierstrasse, the design boutiques on Reuterstrasse, the international restaurants everywhere. The Türkish-and-Arabic Neukölln remains demographically central (40% of residents) but visibly less dominant - the Wilhelmine tenements that were 80% Turkish-tenant in 2005 are now 50% Turkish-tenant and 30% gentrifier-tenant; the originals retire in place, the new residents move in around them. The 'Wessis raus' graffiti and the rent-protest campaigns are the visible cultural response.
The contemporary walking experience
Walking Neukölln in 2026 is walking the most densely-layered immigrant-and-gentrification story in central Berlin. The canonical walk runs north-to-south: start at Maybachufer (the Türkenmarkt Tue/Fri 11-18:30, the canal-side walk along the north edge of Neukölln), cross the canal-side at the Kottbusser Brücke into northern Neukölln, walk south through the Reuterkiez (Reuterstrasse + Pannierstrasse + Weserstrasse - the third-wave-coffee belt) to Hermannplatz, then south along Sonnenallee (the Arab Street) for 1.5 km to Sonnenallee S-Bahn, then west to the Tempelhofer Feld entrance at Oderstrasse, walk through the field 1-2 km to the Tempelhofer Damm exit, finishing at the Tempelhof terminal building. The walk is about 7 km and takes 4-5 hours with stops; on a Sunday with the Tempelhofer Feld picnic crowd and the Reuterkiez brunch you can extend it to a full day. The Britz Hufeisensiedlung (4 km south, U7 Parchimer Allee) is a separate 2-hour detour.
