I ask this question simply because I recently spent four days in Berlin and the difference in many things was blatantly stark.
Take for example parking, everywhere in Berlin was €1,50 per hour, and despite popular belief the traffic wardens were courteous and applied some discretion in the enforcement of the regulations, you could park anywhere and could validate the ticket at any machine, buy four hours use two one place use two the next day somewhere completely different.
Buying longer tickets was cheaper, all the machines gave change as well as accepting credit cards.
A €15 underground ticket gave you four days unlimited travel and reductions on lots of attractions within the city.
The underground the U bahn was immaculate, clean, fast, cheap and completely free of litter both on the tracks and on the platforms, this could also be said of Berlin's streets clean and litter free.
Contrast that then with returning here to good 'ol blighty, paid £5.00 for four hours parking (recently up 19% despite the downturn) at home in Southampton, tickets are not transferable are zoned thus preventing use anywhere else, the machines do not give change and the credit card payment was not operational at the time due to server problems.
Had to go to a local shop to beg some change wading through litter strewn streets packed full of empty beer cans, discarded take away boxes, bottles, condoms, two or three piles of vomit and human excrement laying in the street it was absolutely disgusting.
It's not until you visit somewhere else that is so markedly cleaner that one realises just how filthy some of our streets have become.
I'm sure they'll be somebody who'll say if I like it there so much perhaps I should go and live there, but I like the UK and would like it's streets to be as clean as Berlin's.
Gazza57