13-Jul-07 The Urban Audit Measuring the quality of life in European cities Inna Steinbuka Director EUROSTAT Economic and Regional Statistics Directorate

June 2008 Outline of my talk Goals of the Urban Audit The characteristics of the Urban Audit Number of cities Spatial units Covered domains Data coverage Analysing the data: The State of European Cities report Complementary to hard facts: the perception survey Future challenges

June 2008 Where people live in EU percent live in an urban context !!

June 2008 Major goals and added value of the Urban Audit Support EU urban policy Facilitate comparisons between cities Facilitate exchange of experience between cities Inform the public about the quality of urban life At city level: Assist mayors in reviewing their objectives The added value is the unique neighbourhood level and infra-regional data for urban policy and research

Eurostats mission is to provide the EU high- quality statistical information service DG Regios mission is to strengthen economic, social and territorial cohesion on the basis of high-quality statistical information. Cities and local authorities are involved as data providers and as data users. National Statistical Institutes compile the data and co-ordinate the collection. Main stakeholders of the Urban Audit DG Regio Cities and local authorities National Statistical Institutes Eurostat

June 2008 Urban Audit data collections 1999: Pilot study with 58 cities First large scale Urban Audit in 2003/2004, 258 cities, reference year 2001, Plus partial collection in 26 Turkish cities Collection of historic data, ref. year 1991 and 1996 In 2005, decision by Eurostat: Collecting urban statistics is a core task of Eurostat Data collection every 3 years Second large scale Urban Audit in 2006/2007, 367 cities, reference year 2004 In addition data collection on all cities over inhabitants Next large scale Urban Audit starts in 2009 Including annual data collection the number of cities increased by 30 % 1 out of 4 EU citizen lives in an UA city

Spatial levels in the Urban Audit Land cover map of Torino

Spatial levels in the Urban Audit Land cover map of Torino Core city

Spatial levels in the Urban Audit Land cover map of Torino Core city Larger urban zone

Land cover map of Torino Core city Larger urban zone Sub-city districts Spatial levels in the Urban Audit

June 2008 Not (yet) covered: the rural area Torino Urban areas Intermediate areas Rural areas Challenge No 1: include rural areas

Domains covered by the Urban Audit Demography51 indicators Social aspects47 indicators Economy72 indicators Civic Involvement18 indicators Education19 indicators Environment53 indicators Transport37 indicators Tourism & Culture21 indicators Information Society15 indicators Challenge No 2: increase comparability

Data coverage by domain core city – variables Challenge No 3: increase of coverage

June 2008 The State of European Cities report - an analysis based on the Urban Audit Contracted by DG Regional Policy to a consortium led by ECOTEC Typology of cities Fifty maps illustrating urban trends The Report (EN) and the Executive summaries in 8 languages (DE, EN, ES, FR, IT, NL, PL, PT) are available: index_en.htm index_en.htm Next report is planned to be published in Autumn 2009

June 2008 Strong growth in FI, SE, EL and ES. Decline in many cities in the new Member States Mixed picture in UK, DE, IT and BE Demography

June 2008 Housing Living space per person shows the east / west divide in the most striking manner

June 2008 The perception survey Complementary to hard facts: citizens perception of schools, health service, safety, housing, labour market etc. First in January 2004: 31 cities of 15 old Member States Repeated in December 2006 for 75 cities in EU 27, Croatia and Turkey Telephone survey with 22 questions The survey was launched by DG Regional Policy in the Eurobarometer series and has been executed by Gallup

It is easy to find a good job

It is easy to find good housing at a reasonable price (only the capitals)

13-Jul-07 Challenges to tackle

June 2008 What needs to be improved The Territorial Agenda includes Urban-Rural Partnership as an objective. Challenge No. 1: Rural area is not covered by audit Solution: create a Rural Audit Challenge No. 2: Comparability of the urban data is not up to the standards of national and even regional data Solution: Reflection on a legal framework which would make the Urban Audit data more comparable Challenge No.3: Coverage ranges between 90% and 30% Solution: Reflection on a legal framework which would make the Urban Audit data transmission mandatory

13-Jul-07 Thank you for your attention!