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Climate and energy transition

City - 09.12.2005

Urban audit: a snapshot of life in European cities

Which city has the most green areas? In which city is life expectancy the highest? Which cities are the best at recycling solid waste...? The answers to these questions can be found on Urban Audit.

EU Commissioner for regional policy, Danuta Hübner, presented the 2005 book and website issue of Urban Audit, on 8 December, in Brussels. It contains indicators on all aspects of life in over 250 cities from the 25 EU member states plus Bulgaria and Romania.

Urban Audit is divided in nine categories: demography, social, economy, civic involvement, education, environment, transport, information society, and culture and recreation.

It shows that the highest number of reported crimes per inhabitant is in Liège (Belgium), and that London remains the most populous city in Europe.

Other examples include:

Paris has the highest rate of unemployed per inhabitant;
The city with the highest GDP/head is Frankfurt am Main, followed by two other German cities, Düsseldorf and Regensburg;
The lowest price per m2 for an appartement is in Liepaja, in Latvia;
Bologna boasts the longest life expectancy in Europe;
The four European cities spending the most per resident are Danish (Copenhagen, Aarhus, Aalborg, Odense);
The Latvian cities lead the ranking on "proportion of the local authority's budget derived from local taxation
Polish cities have the highest number of higher education students per head (respectively: Rzeszów, Opole, Katowice)
The ten European cities where the highest number of serious car accidents are recorded are all Italian, the worst being Milan and Florence.

The website is in English only.

Visit the Urban Audit website