This article explores the possible future of unified Berlin against the backdrop of other advanced metropoles, particularly Los Angeles, using some of the findings of global city research as well as that of L.A. school to shed light on the incipient developments of greater Berlin: industrial restructuring, growing internationalization, de- and reconstruction of spatial configurations, and the intensifying economic and social polarization as trends which Berlin shares with other metropoles adjusting to globalization pressures, even though it does not play in the league of global cities.