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  • 8 hours ago
From 11,000 people watering trees to car-free neighborhood blocks: What motivates Berlin's initiatives – and what they change.

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00:00Is there anything I could do to make you feel even better?
00:04Ah, how kind of you.
00:05Did that tree just talk?
00:07It's one of the ideas that came out of an experiment.
00:10Six years ago, Berlin asked its citizens to help make the city greener, cleaner and more sustainable.
00:15We went back to see what actually happened.
00:20Back in 2020, volunteers hit the streets to water Berlin's trees,
00:24all organized through a platform called Geese Then Teeths.
00:27Today, over 11,000 active waterers.
00:31More than 2 million liters port and the idea has spread.
00:35To Leipzig, Magdeburg and even Barcelona and Paris.
00:38Then there's traffic.
00:39Citizens pushed for Geese Blocks, residential zones where cars are rerouted.
00:4435 have been approved.
00:45Parking spots turned into green spaces.
00:48But not everything worked.
00:49A car-free experiment on a major street was reversed.
00:53A planned bike highway?
00:55Mostly still a vision.
00:57It's a problem, I believe, from Berlin, that you don't really have a big vision.
01:14And yet, the city is greener than it was six years ago.
01:18Not because of grand government plans, but because of citizens who decided not to wait.
01:22Sometimes change doesn't start at the top.
01:25Sometimes it starts with a watering can and a talking tree.
01:29What's your city doing?
01:31Let us know.
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