Housing and rents have become the dominant issues in Berlin ahead of the September 20 state election, where the city’s shortage of affordable homes is reshaping the political contest. Berlin will need 211,000 additional homes by 2040, while advertised rents have nearly doubled since 2014; 85% of households rent their homes. The dispute is focused on Tempelhofer Feld, the former Tempelhof airfield that became a park in 2010. The site is almost twice the size of London’s Hyde Park and was kept largely free of development after nearly two-thirds of Berliners voted for that outcome in a referendum. The CDU, FDP and AfD support limited construction on parts of the site, while the SPD, Greens and Left Party oppose building there and prefer other locations. The Left Party is polling at 23%, ahead of the CDU at 21% and the AfD at about 17%, according to Forschungsgruppe Wahlen’s September 11 poll. Both the Left Party and AfD have roughly doubled their support since Berlin’s 2023 election. The Left Party is campaigning for affordable housing, a one-year rent freeze, annual increases capped at 1%, rent reductions for homes priced 20% above the local average, limits on holiday rentals and priority access to vacant central flats for people eligible for social housing. The AfD has linked the housing crisis to its call for tighter immigration restrictions. The election is another test for Friedrich Merz’s struggling national government after the AfD won Saxony-Anhalt two weeks earlier; neighboring Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania also votes on September 20. Berlin’s economic growth, driven largely by a services sector responsible for almost 90% of economic output, has outpaced Germany’s sluggish economy but has also increased rents and land prices. The capital, Germany’s startup hub, had more than 600 companies founded in 2025, while firms including Zalando and N26 are headquartered there. The CDU and SPD campaign has been weakened by political turbulence, including the withdrawal of CDU Mayor Kai Wegner as lead candidate after criticism over a January power outage and a police raid involving SPD lead candidate Steffen Krach, who denies wrongdoing. Protests against high rents drew thousands on September 5, with one resident saying a one- or two-room apartment can cost €1,500 ($1,720) or more per month. Tempelhof’s future therefore reflects the broader conflict between housing demand and the protection of public green space.