Earlier this month, traders based in Hereford's historic High Town area said they feared the new development, on the other side of the ring road to them, could split the city in two.
When painting the start of the stripe at Checkpoint Charlie, a former east- west border-crossing where new building has almost entirely blotted out the past, Eberhard Diepgen, Berlin's mayor, felt obliged to calm unease by declaring that there was no intention to split the city again.