1. UA Revision
An overview

2. Why a revision of the Urban Audit?
Doubts about the comparability of the city and LUZ definitions
Not an annual exercise
List of variables which was not sufficiently focussed
Not linked to other data collections
Not part of Eurostat core tasks
Does not cover all cities

3. Response Revise city and LUZ definitions
Link to other surveys through degree of urbanisation
Data collection is now annual
List of variables has been updated and focussed
More centrally collected data
Will be part of Eurostat legal framework
Covers ALL cities

4. Definition of a city short

5. Definition of a greater city

6. City and greater city revision
885 cities in EU, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Croatia
32 Greater cities (formerly known as kernel)
Version codes (1,2…)
Dropped 63 cities
Added 262 cities
Added 27 greater cities

7. Link to degree of urbanisation
All European surveys will provide from reference year 2012 onwards data for all (greater) cities combined in a country (or region depending on sample size)
For Malta and Luxembourg with only one city, LFS, SILC, IT household survey … will all provide data for the city

8. Larger Urban Zone

9. Harmonised definition of commuting zone
Started with harmonised cities or greater cities
Combine ‘connected cities’ (i.e. 15% of employed population works in another city) into a single destination (not including LAU2s in between)
Identify LAU2/1s with at least 15% of employed population working in the city
Drop exclaves add enclaves
OECD applied definition to other OECD members

10. Comparison with LUZ
Ideally, use harmonised commuting zone without modification
Alternatively, modify LUZs that are too big or too small compared to harmonised definition
But take into account data availability
Update with commuting data from census 2013?
Report on difference LUZ and harmonised commuting zone?

11. State of Play LUZ revision
23 NSI have provided final definition of LUZs
Most of have adopted the commuting zones (FR, NL, BE, PL…)
Some need to match a different level for data availability (PT, AT, SK, CZ, NO, FI)
A few have adjusted the boundary slightly to match a politically relevant area (FI, NO)
Outstanding issues: UK, DE, ES, CZ, BG, HU
No feedback yet: IT, CH

12. Sub-city districts Must cover the national capital
All cities over
Sub-city districts should take into account city size. Dividing a city into only four or five sub-city districts does not added much value. Ideally, smaller cities should have at least 10 SCDs
Questions?

13. Indicators
Over to Eurostat

14. InfoRegio: ec.europa.eu/inforegio
For more information
InfoRegio: ec.europa.eu/inforegio
RegioNetwork: