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| The Urban Audit gives complete picture of quality of life in Europe Danuta Hübner the European Commissioner responsible for regional policy, opened on December 8 the Urban Audit website and presented the “Urban Audit 2005” book. The Urban Audit brings together a wide range of key indicators on the quality of life in 258 cities in the 25 Member States, and candidate countries. The Urban Audit 2005 includes information on 69 cities in the ten new Member States, Bulgaria and Romania. It allows mayors and other local elected officials to compare their city directly with other cities in Europe. An analysis of the Urban Audit shows that: Between 1996 and 2001, slightly more than half of the Urban Audit cities lost population. In the new Member States, Bulgaria and Romania, four out of five cities suffered a decline in population. Some cities lost more than 10% of their population such as Halle an der Saale, Germany and Maribor, Slovenia while others gained more than 10% such as Mallorca, Spain and Oulu, Finland. Three out of four cities have a higher share of tertiary educated residents than their country as whole. Paris and Cambridge reported the highest share of tertiary educated with 37% and 32% of their population respectively. Despite the high concentrations of jobs in cities, employment rates are lower in three out of four cities. The differences can be striking, for example in 2001, Manchester had an employment rate of 51% while the UK had an rate of 72%. To allow these cities to reach their national employment rates more 2 million new jobs are needed. Concentrations of unemployment in deprived urban neighbourhoods can be extreme. Almost one out two cities had neighbourhoods with unemployment rates above 20%, reaching as high as 58%. Such high concentrations of unemployment could be found in both large and medium-sized cities. write your comments about the article :: © 2005 Construction News :: home page |