1. The Urban Audit Where do we go from here?
Berthold Feldmann
Unit D2 - Regional indicators and geographical information
13-Jul-07

2. Structure of the talk Participants of the Think Tank meeting
Always keep in mind:
The Think Tank gives
recommendations,
The Commission
decides.
The process of
decision making is
not yet finished!
Structure of the talk
Participants of the Think Tank meeting
Objectives of the Urban Audit
The spatial units
A legal base?  grants?
Future frequency of the Urban Audit
Sub-city district statistics
Dropped variables
New indicators
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Name of the presentation

3. Think Tank meeting Luxembourg 20/21 May 2008 1) Participants
Dominika Rogalinska (Poland)
Jean-Luc Lipatz (France)
Klaus Trutzel (Germany)
Ralf Gutfleisch (Germany)
Michal Olexa (Slovakia)
Dev Virdee (United Kingdom)
Paul Vickers (United Kingdom)
Corinne Hermant, DG REGIO
Lewis Dijkstra, DG REGIO
Berthold Feldmann, Eurostat
Teodóra Brandmüller, Eurostat
Berthold Huber, Eurostat
Almpanoudis Ioannis, Eurostat
And experts for labour market data, environment statistics, enterprise statistics, culture
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4. 2. Objectives of the Urban Audit
Facilitate the exchange of experience between cities
Allow benchmarking at the European level
Identify cities which act as an engine of growth in their region
Provide comparable statistics in order to identify policy priorities at the European level
Provide descriptive information on inner city structures and on city-hinterland relations
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5. NOT an objective of the Urban Audit:
to provide a decision base for the distribution of EU funding
to fulfil the complete information needs of individual city planners
to calculate EU aggregates
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6. 3. Spatial units in the Urban Audit
Current spatial units:
Core city  administrative concept
LUZ  functional urban area concept
Not covered:
Urban sprawl
Interrelation with rural regions
Rural Audit is necessary – preparations are ongoing
Conclusion: current spatial units are not perfect, but an acceptable compromise
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7. 4.a. A legal base for the Urban Audit?
So far the Urban Audit is often treated as a “project”
Additional work
No permanent resources
A legal base (Regulation) would root the Urban Audit in core business
Eurostat is reflecting on the proposition of a legal text
The process of legislation takes however several years..
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8. 4.b. Grants in the next collection phase
So far the Commission worked with “grant agreements” with the Member States
This is a contract signed by both parties
It takes a lot of resources on both sides to manage 27 grant agreements
For UA-4, starting in 2009, the Commission may use the tool of “grant decisions”
This is a simple letter sent to the beneficiary
A grant is paid if clearly defined results are produced
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9. A possibility to be explored: Grants Decisions for the Urban Audit
Eurostat would calculate the grant for each country based on the number of cities (as in UA-2 and UA-3)
The grant actually paid in the end would depend on the coverage of your delivery
Thresholds are defined which determine the percentage of the grant that will be paid
It is one of the characteristics of a Grant Decision that the final grant payment has to depend on quality (quantity) of the supplied results
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10. Possible grant decision for UA-4 (only an illustration, nothing decided yet..)
Data coverage
Grant paid
80 – 100 percent
100 percent
50 – 79 percent
67 percent
25 – 49 percent
33 percent
< 25 percent
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11. 6. Frequency of the Urban Audit
The Think Tank recommended an annual data collection
Starting in 2009
Collecting data for the years 2004 to 2007
For core city and LUZ
A very limited number of variables (20 to 30)
The exhaustive Urban Audit will continue
Reduced frequency (every 4 to 5 years)
Take place in census years
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12. Tentative calendar of Urban Audit
Year
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Action
Annual UA (also for previous years)
Exhaustive UA for ref. year 2008
Annual UA for 2009
Annual UA for 2010
Exhaustive UA for census year 2011
Annual UA for 2012
Urban Audit 4
Urban Audit 5
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13. 7. Sub-city district statistics
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14. Sub-city districts – data availability (%)
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15. Sub-city districts – data availability % of UA population
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16. How to measure inner-urban disparities?
Obviously the collection of sub-city district data in non census years is a failure
Overall response rate is 15 percent
No analytical or political conclusions can be drawn from such scattered statistics
Hence the collection of SCD data in non census years will be dropped
If countries volunteer to send SCD data nonetheless, they may do so
The Commission will initiate additional research in the measurement of inner-city segregation processes
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17. 8. Dropped variables Variable Comment Incidence rate of victimisation
Very low response rate
All municipal authority income variables
Data is not comparable
All noise variables
Will be collected centrally
Land use
Drop for national level
Morphological variables
Substitute with a qualitative indicator
3 public transport variables
Drop for LUZ
All local e-government variables
No longer relevant
Purchasing power parities
Recalculate for EU-27
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18. 9. New Indicators
Number of enterprises that had a revenue increase last year (size class employees)
Number of enterprises that had a revenue increase last year (size class >250 employees)
Employment growth last year (size class employees)
Employment growth last year (size class >250 employees)
Average size of school classes
Percentage of population exposed to concentrations in exceedance for fine particles PM2.5
Proportion of solid waste which is composted
Average length of commuting trips
Median population age
Number of persons born abroad (not only nationals), broken down by continent
Proportion of households with at least 3 children less than 17 years old
Number of unemployed person households with children
Number of unemployed person households without children
Suicide rate (by age groups)
Number of general practitioners
Number of specialist doctors
The employment rates by gender with/without children (0-17)
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19. Changes in the variables
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20. Thank you for your attention