1980 becomes the year of the citizens’ initiative in West Berlin. Squatters in Kreuzberg are demanding rental contracts for the nineteenth-century buildings that they have occupied in an effort to stop the senate from tearing them down. Affordable housing is hard to come by, and investment in Kreuzberg stopped a long time ago. As immigrants, artists and old-timers gather among the crumbling buildings, a colourful, vibrant community comes alive in the shadow of the Wall.