The Urban Audit Where do we go from here? Berthold Feldmann Unit D2 - Regional indicators and geographical information 13-Jul-07

Structure of the talk Participants of the Think Tank meeting Always keep in mind: The Think Tank gives recommendations, The Commission decides. The process of decision making is not yet finished! Structure of the talk Participants of the Think Tank meeting Objectives of the Urban Audit The spatial units A legal base?  grants? Future frequency of the Urban Audit Sub-city district statistics Dropped variables New indicators 2 / 20 Name of the presentation

Think Tank meeting Luxembourg 20/21 May 2008 1) Participants Dominika Rogalinska (Poland) Jean-Luc Lipatz (France) Klaus Trutzel (Germany) Ralf Gutfleisch (Germany) Michal Olexa (Slovakia) Dev Virdee (United Kingdom) Paul Vickers (United Kingdom) Corinne Hermant, DG REGIO Lewis Dijkstra, DG REGIO Berthold Feldmann, Eurostat Teodóra Brandmüller, Eurostat Berthold Huber, Eurostat Almpanoudis Ioannis, Eurostat And experts for labour market data, environment statistics, enterprise statistics, culture 3 / 20 Name of the presentation

2. Objectives of the Urban Audit Facilitate the exchange of experience between cities Allow benchmarking at the European level Identify cities which act as an engine of growth in their region Provide comparable statistics in order to identify policy priorities at the European level Provide descriptive information on inner city structures and on city-hinterland relations 4 / 20 Name of the presentation

NOT an objective of the Urban Audit: to provide a decision base for the distribution of EU funding to fulfil the complete information needs of individual city planners to calculate EU aggregates 5 / 20 Name of the presentation

3. Spatial units in the Urban Audit Current spatial units: Core city  administrative concept LUZ  functional urban area concept Not covered: Urban sprawl Interrelation with rural regions Rural Audit is necessary – preparations are ongoing Conclusion: current spatial units are not perfect, but an acceptable compromise 6 / 20 Name of the presentation

4.a. A legal base for the Urban Audit? So far the Urban Audit is often treated as a “project” Additional work No permanent resources A legal base (Regulation) would root the Urban Audit in core business Eurostat is reflecting on the proposition of a legal text The process of legislation takes however several years.. 7 / 20 Name of the presentation

4.b. Grants in the next collection phase So far the Commission worked with “grant agreements” with the Member States This is a contract signed by both parties It takes a lot of resources on both sides to manage 27 grant agreements For UA-4, starting in 2009, the Commission may use the tool of “grant decisions” This is a simple letter sent to the beneficiary A grant is paid if clearly defined results are produced 8 / 20 Name of the presentation

A possibility to be explored: Grants Decisions for the Urban Audit Eurostat would calculate the grant for each country based on the number of cities (as in UA-2 and UA-3) The grant actually paid in the end would depend on the coverage of your delivery Thresholds are defined which determine the percentage of the grant that will be paid It is one of the characteristics of a Grant Decision that the final grant payment has to depend on quality (quantity) of the supplied results 9 / 20 Name of the presentation

Possible grant decision for UA-4 (only an illustration, nothing decided yet..) Data coverage Grant paid 80 – 100 percent 100 percent 50 – 79 percent 67 percent 25 – 49 percent 33 percent < 25 percent 10 / 20 Name of the presentation

6. Frequency of the Urban Audit The Think Tank recommended an annual data collection Starting in 2009 Collecting data for the years 2004 to 2007 For core city and LUZ A very limited number of variables (20 to 30) The exhaustive Urban Audit will continue Reduced frequency (every 4 to 5 years) Take place in census years 11 / 20 Name of the presentation

Tentative calendar of Urban Audit Year 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Action Annual UA (also for previous years) Exhaustive UA for ref. year 2008 Annual UA for 2009 Annual UA for 2010 Exhaustive UA for census year 2011 Annual UA for 2012 Urban Audit 4 Urban Audit 5 12 / 20 Name of the presentation

7. Sub-city district statistics 13 / 20 Name of the presentation

Sub-city districts – data availability (%) 14 / 20 Name of the presentation

Sub-city districts – data availability % of UA population 15 / 20 Name of the presentation

How to measure inner-urban disparities? Obviously the collection of sub-city district data in non census years is a failure Overall response rate is 15 percent No analytical or political conclusions can be drawn from such scattered statistics Hence the collection of SCD data in non census years will be dropped If countries volunteer to send SCD data nonetheless, they may do so The Commission will initiate additional research in the measurement of inner-city segregation processes 16 / 20 Name of the presentation

8. Dropped variables Variable Comment Incidence rate of victimisation Very low response rate All municipal authority income variables Data is not comparable All noise variables Will be collected centrally Land use Drop for national level Morphological variables Substitute with a qualitative indicator 3 public transport variables Drop for LUZ All local e-government variables No longer relevant Purchasing power parities Recalculate for EU-27 17 / 20 Name of the presentation

9. New Indicators Number of enterprises that had a revenue increase last year (size class 1-250 employees) Number of enterprises that had a revenue increase last year (size class >250 employees) Employment growth last year (size class 1-250 employees) Employment growth last year (size class >250 employees) Average size of school classes Percentage of population exposed to concentrations in exceedance for fine particles PM2.5 Proportion of solid waste which is composted Average length of commuting trips Median population age Number of persons born abroad (not only nationals), broken down by continent Proportion of households with at least 3 children less than 17 years old Number of unemployed person households with children Number of unemployed person households without children Suicide rate (by age groups) Number of general practitioners Number of specialist doctors The employment rates by gender with/without children (0-17) 18 / 20 Name of the presentation

Changes in the variables 19 / 20 Name of the presentation

Thank you for your attention