Nr.No.No 11 1 AoûtDezember August 2007 2007 2007 NEWS LETTER RäumlicheSpatialAnalyses analyses et Analysen disparités and disparitiesund spatiales Disparitäten Editorial The particular feature of this edition of StatSpace is that it is solely devoted to the European Urban Audit project in which Switzerland has been involved since 2006 as part of a pilot phase. This project has been implemented thanks to close co- operation between the FSO (Federal Statistical Office), ARE (Federal Office for Spatial Development) and the statistical of- fices and services in the cantons of Geneva and Vaud and in the cities of Zurich and Bern. The main purpose of this newsletter is to provide information about the Urban Audit project itself, as well as on the meas- ures taken by Switzerland as part of its involvement. It then presents, by way of illustration, a selection of indicators taken from the initial findings of the Swiss pilot phase, comparing Urban Audit: initial assess- Swiss cities in a European context. It concludes with a brief description of the future measures envisaged in Switzerland ment of the Swiss pilot phase as part of the Urban Audit project. This project, the importance of which is constantly growing Urban Audit in brief 1 within Europe, both from a statistical and regional policy per- spective, provides a major source of information for Switzer- Initial measures taken by Switzerland land, whether for the Confederation as a whole, its cantons with a view to regular participation 2 or cities. The work carried out by Switzerland since 2006 marks a first Sample results from the pilot phase 2 important step towards the country’s regular participation in the Urban Audit. Once the European Union has distributed fi- Impressions of partners participating nal data, scheduled for the end of 2007, a more comprehen- in the pilot phase 13 sive analysis of the results will be carried out in spring 2008 by the FSO, the ARE and the statistical offices and services in Moving towards Switzerland’s the cantons of Geneva and Vaud and in the cities of Zurich regular participation in the Urban Audit 14 and Bern. News and Impressum 16 Urban Audit in brief The Urban Audit (UA) was launched in June 1998 by the Eu- urban policy issues. With this in mind, the UA’s task was to ropean Commission following its communication “Towards an gather comparable statistical data, which was lacking at the urban agenda in the European Union”. The UA project is part time, on a certain number of urban zones. In 2005 the UA of the European Union’s regional and cohesion policies, and was designated as a key Eurostat activity, thereby enhancing its aim is to evaluate the quality of life in Europe’s cities and its importance. the progress achieved, with a view to providing solutions to NEWSLETTER N o . 1 august 2 0 0 7 SP atial anal Y ses an D D is P arities 1 The Urban Audit is currently carried out in almost 300 cities spread across 27 countries. As part of the EU’s expansion, this Initial measures taken project is also important for the new members. Furthermore, by Switzerland with a view Norway and Switzerland1 joined the UA process in 2006. In order to achieve the best possible analysis of living condi- to regular participation tions in the cities involved, 350 variables, which can be used The Urban Audit is of interest to Switzerland in a number of to calculate over 300 indicators, are selected in the 2006 Ur- respects. This programme provides an excellent complement ban Audit. They are arranged according to nine fields: popu- to the measures taken in Switzerland as part of its agglomera- lation, social aspects, economic aspects, civic involvement, ed- tion policy. Not only does it allow Swiss cities to see where ucation and training, environment, travel and transport, infor- they are in relation to each other, but also in relation to other mation society, as well as culture and recreation. The statistics European cities, thanks to the comparable information availa- are compiled and presented at three spatial levels for each city ble, which is of guaranteed high quality and easily accessible. selected: Core City or C, Larger Urban Zone, LUZ or L and It might also be useful for devising development strategies, Sub-City Districts, SCD or S. not to mention helping to raise Switzerland’s profile, making it no longer just a white patch in the middle of Europe. Tab. 1: Range of fields covered by the Urban Audit In acknowledgement of this, the Federal Statistical Office Population Demography (FSO) and the Federal Office for Spatial Development (ARE) Nationality Household structure launched in 2006 the first measures aimed at evaluating the terms for Switzerland’s involvement in this programme, in Social aspects Housing Health consultation with partners in the cantons and cities. Crime In summer 2006, the Swiss cities likely at that time to take Economic aspects Labour market part in the Urban Audit based on the criteria laid down by Economic activity 3 Income disparities and poverty Eurostat , namely Zurich, Basel, Geneva, Bern, Lausanne, Civic involvement Civic involvement Winterthur, Saint-Gall, Lucerne and Lugano, together with Local administration the European project managers, were invited to attend a Education and training Students, school pupils workshop. Based on the interest shown by several cities, the Educational qualifications decision was made to launch a pilot phase in the cities of Zu- Environment Climate, geography rich, Geneva, Bern and Lausanne between autumn 2006 and Air quality and noise the end of 2007. The data gathered as part of this pilot will Water be integrated in early 2008 with the data planned for distri- Waste management Land use bution by the European Union on the 2006 Urban Audit. Travel and transport Travel patterns Information society Users and infrastructure Local e-Governments Sample results from the pilot Information and communication technologies phase Culture and recreation Culture and recreation Tourism From this point onwards, a selection from the main findings of the Swiss pilot phase is presented in the form of graphs Eurostat and the Directorate-General for Regional Policy at and maps. The purpose of this is more about illustrating the the European Commission (DG Regio) distribute the Urban project in its pilot phase rather than providing a true compar- Audit data via various channels. Direct access to the relevant ative analysis between cities. The Swiss data (from 2004 or databases is provided via the UA website (www.urbanaudit. else the closest year), which is still provisional4, is compared org) or via the Eurostat website, Newcronos2. A directory is against that for a selection of European cities. The data for published every three years containing a summary of the in- these cities is available in the Urban Audit’s database on the formation available about the participating cities. The next Newcronos (for the years 1999 to 2003, depending on the edition, referring to the 2006 UA, will appear in 2008. UA re- country). The definitive data for the 2006 UA will be available sults are also included in publications linked to other projects, on the websites already mentioned at the start of 2008 for all such as ESPON (European Spatial Planning Observation) or the participating cities. More comprehensive Swiss data will the social and economic cohesion reports from the European be distributed in spring 2008. Commission. 1 Pilot phase 2006/2007. 2 Newcronos is Eurostat’s online database. It can be accessed free of charge 3 Cities with at least 50,000 inhabitants and a substantial geographic spread, via http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu > EN > General and regional statistics > capital of the country involved. Data tab > Urban Audit 4 The data has not been verified yet by Eurostat 2 NEWSLETTER N o . 1 august 2 0 0 7 SP atial anal Y ses an D D is P arities Resident population around 2002, city level M 1 Number of inhabitants 7 172 091 2 500 000 Helsinki 500 000 Stockholm 76 688 Population density, Dublin Copenhagen 2 5 inhabitantsVoir carte des per groupes km de quartiers Audit urbain, niveau 2, page 15. * 10 000 Hamburg 5000 – 9999 London Berlin 3500 – 4999 Brussels Warsaw 2500 – 3499 1500 – 2499 Luxembourg Nuremberg Prague < 1500 Freiburg i.B. Strasbourg Besançon no information available Dijon Munich Vienna Lausanne Zurich Lyon Bern Geneva Graz Turin Milan Grenoble Bologna Barcelona Rome Sources: Eurostat, Urban Audit / FSO © FSO, ThemaKart, Neuchâtel 2007 Tips on reading the graphs and maps – Any cities selected which have missing data or are re- garded as not viable are still mentioned in the graphs – The analysis focuses on City (C) level, while introducing and maps in order to make them easier to read by pre- the levels Larger Urban Zone (LUZ or L) and Sub-City Dis- senting the same list of cities all the time. trict (SCD or S). The regionalisation levels are defined by each country based on the methods specified by Eurostat. – In Switzerland level C corresponds to the commune; level L to agglomerations according to the FSO defini- Population density tion (2000), that of Geneva corresponding to the canton plus the Nyon district; the official FSO districts have Geneva clearly stands out been combined into groups of districts based on 2 levels5 Swiss cities are, as might be expected, among the smallest in order to comply with the limits imposed by Eurostat in terms of number of inhabitants, along with Freiburg im (5000 inhabitants minimum). Breisgau, Graz, Luxembourg and Besançon (M1). Among the – The 26 EU cities chosen to show examples are primarily 30 cities selected, 11 have a population of over one million located in the countries bordering Switzerland (France, inhabitants.