Doesn’t really matter how high the property tax rate is, when your property is borderline worthless.

The cost of local government services doesn’t vary that widely from town to town. Conservative towns will spend like drunken sailors to maintain their sprawling infrastructure. Liberal cities will have more budget for “wasteful” services because sprawl isn’t bankrupting them.

Berlin is a special case because it has the classic Rust Belt problem. It’s a sprawling mess of a town, and all the dilapidated infrastructure they’re barely maintaining was built for twice as many people. It is a very difficult problem to fix that kind of fiscal death spiral, and the people of Berlin are really not up to the task.