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

2. 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

3. Where people live in EU-27
74 percent live in an urban context !!
There are 28 cities in the EU27 with more than 1 million inhabitants. If we sum up the population of these 28 cities the result is 67 million people. This constitutes 13.7 % of the total EU27 population. The number of people living in communes with more than 5000 inhabitants is 354 million, 74% of the total EU27 population. It means that 3 out of 4 EU citizen lives in an urban context.
June 2008

4. 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
The Urban Audit is a useful reference tool for urban development. It has been designed for use by local authorities, policy makers, researchers, students and citizens who wish to know more about their city and how it compares with other cities across Europe.
June 2008

5. Main stakeholders of the Urban Audit
National Statistical Institutes
Cities and local authorities
Cities and local authorities are involved as data providers and as data users.
National Statistical Institutes compile the data and co-ordinate the collection.
Eurostat
DG Regio
Eurostat’s mission is to provide the EU high-quality statistical information service
DG Regio’s mission is to strengthen economic, social and territorial cohesion on the basis of high-quality statistical information.
Cohesion Policy has already played an important role in the development of Europe's towns and cities. This role will expand in the new programming period as the urban dimension is integrated into the operational programmes proposed by the Member States and co-financed by the Structural Funds.
The Community Strategic Guidelines on cohesion specifies that actions with a focus on urban areas can take different forms:
Actions to promote cities as motors of regional development.
Actions to promote internal cohesion inside the urban areas.
Actions to promote a more balanced, polycentric development.
To support the implementation of these actions at the local level the Urban Audit provides information on the Competitiveness of Cities, on the Quality of life in Cities and on the Power of Cities.

6. 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
In 1999 the Commission conducted a tentative data collection of comparable indicators for European cities. The purpose of this so-called "Urban Audit" was to test the feasibility of collecting comparable measurements of the quality of life in European cities. After the completion of the Urban Audit, the Commission decided that there was a clear need to continue and improve this approach of collecting comparable information on urban developments.
The positive results led the Commission to launch a full‑scale “Urban Audit” covering 258 cities in Member States and candidate countries. Subsequently, in 2005, 26 cities from Turkey joined the project. The reference year of the 2003/2004 data collection was For a reduced number of 80 variables "historic” data, i.e. the data referring to 1991 and 1996 have been collected.
The second large scale data collection for Urban Audit started in 2006 including 367 cities. In this data collection round Croatia, Norway and Switzerland also joined the project.
The selection of Urban Audit cities was based on several criteria. As a general requirement, the cities selected should reflect the geographical cross-section of each country.
Consequently, in a few countries some large cities (over 100 000 inhabitants) are not included in the Urban Audit. To complement the Urban Audit data collection in this respect, in 2006 a new data collection the so called "Large City Audit" was launched. The Large City Audit includes all “non-Urban Audit cities” with more than 100 000 inhabitants in the EU-27. For these cities a reduced set of 50 variables is collected. (For the Urban Audit cities more than 300 variables are collected.)
To improve the timeliness of the data collection it has been decided to collect approx. 30 variables annually starting in 2009.
The total population of the Urban Audit cities situated in EU 27 is more than 120 million, covering approximately 25% of the total population.
June 2008

7. Spatial levels in the Urban Audit
Land cover map of Torino
A city could be designated as an urban settlement or as a legal, administrative entity. As an example we can look at the land cover map of Torino. The red areas on the map indicate the built-up area, the so called morphological city. The Urban Audit uses the administrative concept and delineates the so called "core city" by the political boundaries.

8. Spatial levels in the Urban Audit
Land cover map of Torino
─ Core city
In most cases these political boundaries most of the built-up area.

9. Spatial levels in the Urban Audit
Land cover map of Torino
─ Core city
─ Larger urban zone
However, economic activity, labour force or air pollution etc. evidently cross the administrative boundaries of a city. To capture information on this extended spatial level the "larger urban zone" was defined based on commuter flows. The larger urban zone includes the core city and its "commuter belt".

10. Spatial levels in the Urban Audit
Land cover map of Torino
─ Core city
─ Larger urban zone
─ Sub-city districts
Each core city is divided up into sub-city districts. This spatial level enables collecting information on disparities within a city.

11. Not (yet) covered: the rural area
Urban areas
Intermediate areas
Rural areas
Torino
This map shows the NUTS 3 regions surrounding Torino. The red areas are urban regions based on the OECD urban-rural classification. Dark green areas are rural regions. These are not covered by the urban audit data collection.
Challenge No 1: include rural areas
June 2008

12. Domains covered by the Urban Audit
Demography 51 indicators
Social aspects 47 indicators
Economy 72 indicators
Civic Involvement 18 indicators
Education 19 indicators
Environment 53 indicators
Transport 37 indicators
Tourism & Culture 21 indicators
Information Society 15 indicators
Challenge No 2: increase comparability
Domains where internationally established definitions and methodologies exist are easier to cover, for example the domain of Demography or Economy. On the other hand, in domains where no internationally agreed definitions are available, for example urban transport, the comparability of data is a major concern.

13. Data coverage by domain core city – variables
Challenge No 3: increase of coverage
Updated version

14. 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:
Next report is planned to be published in Autumn 2009
The ‘State of European Cities Report’ has been prepared in 2007 by ECOTEC, in cooperation with NordRegio and Eurofutures, following a call for tenders published by DG Regional Policy.
This report is a comprehensive study of 1996 and 2001 Urban Audit data. It provides a user-friendly access to urban statistics, through a series of maps and gives an in-depth analysis of demography, economy, social conditions, education, environment, transport and culture. The report provides local, regional, national and European decision makers with a useful tool to shape their future actions.
June 2008

15. Strong growth in FI, SE, EL and ES.
Demography
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
In the period , a third of cities grew at a rate in excess of 0.2% per year, a third saw their populations remain stable (rates of population change between -0.2 and 0.2%) and a third experienced a notable decline in population.
In general, Urban Audit cities in the Nordic countries grew at substantially faster rates than the national populations in the countries in question.
The changing economic and social context in Central and Eastern Europe has had a strong impact on urban demographic developments.
In the second half of the 1990s, many Urban Audit cities in Southern Europe grew strongly.
Migration plays a key role. As a general rule, large Urban Audit cities tend to have experienced higher levels of inward migration than smaller cities and a substantial proportion of migrants are in the younger age groups (under 40).
June 2008

16. Housing
Living space per person shows the east / west divide in the most striking manner
Differences in living space per resident are striking across Europe. The average living space per inhabitant in some cities is almost three times higher than in others. There are over 30 cities where the average area of living space per inhabitant is more than 40 m2, and these are all situated in the western part of the EU. City dwellers in the New Member States are much less well off.
Urban residents in Bulgaria, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Poland have on average between 15 and 20 m² living space per inhabitant at their disposal. The lowest scores are recorded in the cities of Pleven and Ruse in Bulgaria and in Riga in Latvia where most households live in apartments offering on average less than 13 m² per person.
June 2008

17. 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
Measuring the perception of the quality of life in cities is crucial in understanding how citizens sense and observe the states and trends reflected in the statistical data. The most recent Urban Audit Perception Survey was carried out in December Survey data were collected through telephone interviews of samples of 500 persons in 75 major cities in the EU-27, Croatia and Turkey.
The Perception Survey has been launched by DG Regional Policy and has been executed by Gallup, in the context of a series of "Eurobarometer flash" surveys funded by the European Commission (DG Communication).
June 2008

18. It is easy to find a good job
The perceived quality of job opportunities is one of the factors attracting people to a city. This figure illustrates the responses to the questions in the survey on job opportunities. More than two thirds of respondents in Praha (CZ) strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement that "in this city it is easy to find a good job". København (DK) and Dublin (IE) returned similar positive results, see right side of the figure. Job opportunities are considered to be very limited in the cities of eastern Germany and southern Italy.

19. It is easy to find good housing at a reasonable price (only the capitals)
The opinions on housing are also markedly diverse across cities, as can be seen from this Figure. Respondents in Paris, Luxembourg and Dublin almost unanimously disagreed with the statement that "in this city it is easy to find good housing at reasonable prices". On the other hand, the majority of answers were positive for Athens, Budapest and Ankara.

20. Challenges to tackle
13-Jul-07

21. 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
June 2008

22. Thank you for your attention!
13-Jul-07