Presenting a harmonised city definition and its application What is a city? Presenting a harmonised city definition and its application Alexandros Karvounis DG REGIO - Unit B1 Economic Analysis and Additionality Taskforce on Passenger Mobility, 10th April 2014

According to ESTAT Glossary "A city can be defined as: a) un urban settlement (morphological concept) b) a functional unit; c) a legal entity (administrative concept)" Problem: this concept is not always comparable between countries and undermines the credibility of cross country analysis of cities.

Two linked local classifications New degree of urbanisation Cities (densely) Towns and suburbs (intermediate) Rural areas (thinly populated) Urban Audit 2012 Cities Commuting zones Other areas IMPORTANT! Cities are selected based on the population of their centre, not total population

New degree of urbanisation Type of Area Criteria Thinly populated or rural area > 50% pop. in rural grid cells Intermediate or towns and suburbs or small urban area < 50% pop. in rural grid cells and < 50% pop. in urban centres Densely populated or cities or large urban area > 50% pop. in urban centres

Detailed definition A city is a local administrative unit (LAU) where the majority of the population lives in an urban centre of at least 50 000 inhabitants. Urban centre Contiguous grid cells with at least 1 500 inhabitants per km2, excluding diagonals Gaps filled A minimum population of 50 000 City A city consists of one or more LAU2s City has at least 50% population in urban centres At least 75% of each urban centre population is located within one or more cities

One, two, three city of Graz

Harmonised definition in three steps Define an urban centre of 50 000 or more Define a city based on this urban centre (LAU2 or groups of LAU2s) Define a commuting zone based on this city (including check for polycentric cities) A commuting zone contains the surrounding travel-to-work areas of a city where at least 15 % of their employed residents are working in this city.

One, two, three

828 (greater) cities with an urban centre of at least 50 000 inhabitants in the EU, Switzerland, Croatia, Iceland and Norway were identified. Half of these European cities are relatively small with a centre between 50 000 and 100 000 inhabitants. Only two are global cities (London and Paris). These cities host about 40 % of the EU population.

Acknowledgements of all the partners DG AGRI, JRC, Eurostat OECD 30+ national statisticals institutes European Forum for Geostatistics

More information on CITIES IN EUROPE, THE NEW OECD-EC DEFINITION By Lewis Dijkstra and Hugo Poelman DG REGIO, Regional Focus RF 01/2012 http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/focus/2012_01_city.pdf