1. Presenting a harmonised city definition and its application
A revised Urban Audit
Presenting a harmonised city definition and its application

2. Review process in 2010-2011 Revise indicators: less and more focussed
Link to official statistics: degree of urbanisation and Europe 2020
Revise frequency: annual
Revise city selection: all cities instead of sample
Revise city and larger urban zone boundaries: a new OECD-EC definition
Validated by all National Statistical Institutes

3. 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

4. Replace three conflicting classifications
Urban-Rural Typology
Degree of urbanisation
Urban Audit
Rural LAU2
≠ Thinly populated
Intermediate density
Densely populated ≠
Cities or Greater Cities

5. New degree of urbanisation
Used in the data collections for reference year 2012 onwards in
Labour Force Survey
Survey on Income and Living Conditions
IT household Survey
Safety Survey in 2013
Adult education survey
Eurobarometers?
Eurofound European Quality of Life Survey 2011 will also use it

8. EU-OECD definition of a city in four steps
Select cells with inhabitants per sq km
Cluster cells, fill gaps and select those with more than inhabitants (urban centre)
Select all LAU2s with at least 50% of their inhabitants in the urban centre.
Adjust for political level if needed
IMPORTANT! Cities are selected on the population of their centre, not total population

10. Creating a Greater City

11. Adjusting the classification
A densely populated LAU2 can be classified intermediate as long as 75% of its high-density cluster population remains in densely populated LAU2s.
A thinly populated or intermediate density LAU2 can be classified as densely populated if it belongs to a group of LAU2s with a political function and if the majority of population of this group of LAU2s lives in a high-density cluster.

13. Toulouse - CU du Grand Toulouse

14. Commuting zone
Check if (greater) cities are ‘connected’ i.e. have at least a one-way commuting intensity of 15%. If so combine cities into a single destination
Identify all LAU2s that send 15% of their employed population to a city
Drop exclaves and add enclaves
If needed approximate with area for which data is available (LAU1, NUTS3)

16. Overall impact
The number of cities in the Urban Audit has increased significantly: from 684 to 828.
64 cities were dropped, notably in France, but also the UK, Italy and Malta.
A substantial increase in the number of Greater cities to 33 and no longer limited to capitals. They now also include Milan, Naples, Bilbao, Barcelona, Porto, Rotterdam, Manchester…

20. Border cities

22. Other typologies
Harbour cities: Defined by proximity to a harbour and the amount of goods transported through this harbour
Regional capitals: capital or a region with a political function (to be combined with the population of the region and the regional authority index) based on feedback from the NUACs.