Bad romance: the love-hate relationship between inhabitants of St. Pauli and their infamous Hamburg neighbourhood

Abstract

This research project stems from my desire to understand the neighbourhood I myself accidentally inhabit for the past year. Through this small research project, I wanted, therefore, to try and meet others that live in the side streets of the Reeperbahn area, in order to ask them how they feel about their neighbourhood and how, if at all, they come to terms with it. In order to reveal the dialectical nature of St. Pauli and the love-hate relationship which I presumed a lot of my neighbours had, I decided to ask two simple questions: (i) What do you like about living in St. Pauli? (ii) What don't you like about living in St. Pauli? Additionally, I was curious to know if other people perceive, as I do, a strong contrast between the inside and outside of their homes. And if so, how did they feel about such discrepancies.