London trains are hardly affordable. A 30 min commute into London on the train would add £300/month to the cost for where I live. Or 500/mo if you want to park at the station.

Sydney has no "cheap and viable" areas anymore.

I have a three bedroom place (wich I share with two others) in New Jersey for $1600 and its only a $6 35 min commute to New York. Not bad if you ask me

It depends what you class as cheap. I work in Barcelona, and my rent is affordable, but if you compare the IT wages here and in London, I regularly get contacted about jobs paying around double what I earn over in London. I have been looking around for new jobs, but it seems I am already pretty close to the top of the salary range here.

I don't know. It's clearly first-world. And it's a major city -- the political center of Germany, one of the top tourist destinations in the world, and highly regarded for its arts and culture, nightlife and high standards of living. It's got low unemployment and high growth. It's also host to an apparently booming startup culture (although many of the actors with presence in the city are in fact foreign companies).

I don't know anything about modern-day Germany, except the constant buzz in the news of the German economic success. Is Berlin overshadowed by other cities in Germany? Is it merely the seat of government and not economically successful?

Or is this merely a German joke about a rough town?

I just did a bunch of Craigslist searches and verified that the apartments looked nice.

I didn't say Mitte, though, but close to Mitte. Central areas like Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg.