Business districts of Berlin

I'm hoping to move to Berlin in June or July this year. I want to take a German course and also teach English. I guess my problem is I'm a bit fussy. I'd really like to live in a quiet, leafy area, but within a reasonable distance to 'life', or more specifically 'things' . And importantly, within reasonable distance to potential business English clients. This might seem a bit vague so I'll try to explain. I want to live a little out of the centre of Berlin because it's quieter, cheaper, leafy (i.e. for me, nicer), and I also want relatively easy parking. But I don't want to find a great place to live in say, south Berlin and then find out (after registering etc) that I'll need to travel 1 hour to the nearest business client.

Is there a particular region of Berlin which is zoned for industrial use and where business clients might be found? Or are businesses really all over?

I've read posts on particular suburbs but they all seem pretty much in central Berlin. Can anyone suggest a general area, like a number of suburbs or a geographical region (for e.g. south-west), which I could plug into www.wg-gesucht.de and search.

It sounds like "travel" for you means by car, right? Because Berlin has an extensive and mostly efficient public transport network, especially around the center.

I just spent a week in East Berlin and I loved it although I felt the bahn stops were a bit further apart than I liked. What a great city.

Berlin is a polycentric city, i.e. it doesn't have one central area and the business districts are spread out across a multitude of locations (as would be your potential clients). Also, the "leafy suburbs" are not necessarily cheap, or if they are they'll be quite far from places of interest. On the other hand, if you're not living on a main road or next to a coal depot, many areas in the center are quite pleasant if a little less arboreal, and parking is not such great problem (at least compared to other capital cities). If you don't know Berlin I'd suggest you look for somewhere reasonably close to the S-Bahn ring line; Wilmersdorf or Friedenau on the line's southwest section might be a good starting point.

jtw

A car would be good because I could accept clients a little off the beaten track that perhaps other English teachers, who rely on public transport, wouldn't be keen on accepting. Maybe just one way to help get started..

kofferInBerlin

Thanks, knowing Germany is so decentralised, I suspected as much. I was surprised to hear the "grüne Gürtel" (is that right?) suburbs are more expensive. I would have guessed it to be most expensive somewhere like Mitte and then cheaper the further out you went (except for the exclusive suburbs of course). Is it still cheaper in the East than the West? If I'm looking for more tress and and a larger room for my euro would the East be best?

I think your best bet is to find somewhere fairly central (i.e. in the vicinity of the S-Bahn ring) to start out with and see how things work out, depending on how your work develops and how you get to like Berlin; then find a more permanent place accordingly. BTW eastern Berlin is not necessarily cheaper; you can find a place for virtually nothing out in the wilds of Marzahn or Hellersdorf, albeit in a GDR-style housing project; the more attractive "inner zone" (Friedrichshain, Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg) is in higher demand and prices are set accordingly.