It's the live-and-let-live atmosphere of this neighbohood, the cosmopolitan heart of Cologne, which attracts Tassilo. Trees haphazardly line the bicycle-clogged cobblestone streets. On this afternoon, the sidewalks are crowded with everyone from die-hard, half-drunk punks, to rollerbladers, to mothers with baby strollers. Narrow sidestreets hold corner grocery stores, tattoo shops, a small but world-class beer store and multilingual bookstores.

To Tassilo, the bustling streets are lot like San Francisco or New York, cities he visited during a recent carefree road trip across America. "Cologne is big, but it's also like a small city. It has a lot of different scenes, and you can see the same faces over and over. I think a lot of gay and black peope live here because they don't have any problems from people. Any real problems. Yes, there are some fascist skinheads, but they live in the suburbs or outside the city. Five years ago being a fascist was trendy, but now it's trendy only in East Germany. In Cologne, the Neo-Nazis don't wear black boots and shave their head. Here it's coats and ties."

The most important thing for young "Kölner" is to be different, says Tassilo, who is from the town of Giöttingen near the former Easter German border. Like his friends, he wears the ubiquitious baggy jeans, buzz cut, and narrow wrap-around dark glasses of techno fans. The style might not last much longer. In Cologne, trends in fashion and music tend to come and go every two years. "I could play a tape of (drum and base techno music) in the car with my mother, and she would love it, because it's so nice and happy. So now techo is getting darker and darker. A new quality is emerging.