Berlin is far from a shithole. It's a beautiful international city with some problems, but compared to Paris' banlieues or New York filth and trash, all of Berlin's troubles are absolutely minute. For comparison, while there is some "gang" activity in Berlin, rival gangs beating each others in public swimming pools makes national news.
I like it too but only to visit and party every now and then, since, due to the massive liberal and expat/immigrant population there, it's the only place in Germany where I feel comfortable and at home, and not in a conservative conformist dystopian nightmare, despite me being fluent in German.
But with the general poor state of the city despite the high income taxes, and that terrible housing market over there I can't ever see myself moving there to live permanently today. In hindsight maybe 4-5 years ago, when housing was still easier to find, would have been the better time for that but not in the current housing market. If you lucked out and got a nice flat before housing went to hell, good for you. But then good luck next time you need to move again.
Unless all you care about is tech start-ups and wild parties with drugs and cheap food and beer, the housing market there and general poor state makes it a bad place to live if you're used to high quality of life cities that are well kept, like Vienna for example.
I'd like to live in a place where finding housing that isn't overpriced and poorly maintained, isn't a full time job in of itself where you waste dozens of hours calling agents and fighting with hundreds of people hunger games style just for the opportunity of living in an overpriced shitty uninsulated flat that hasn't seen any renovations or modernization since the early '80s (if you're lucky).
Maybe I'm getting old, but since I'm not a student anymore, the party scene doesn't make up for that huge hassle.
>but compared to Munich rent is still affordable in Berlin
I hear this a lot, and this may still have been the case 4 years ago or so, but I feel this is mostly coming from people who found housing in Berlin before Covid and aren't experiencing the current market.
Berlin would like to step up as a challenger for that title.