Eurostat Working Party on Regional Statistics, 1 – 2 October 2012

1. Eurostat Working Party on Regional Statistics, 1 – 2 October 2012 Urban Audit Data Collections 2012-13 Some considerations from the point of view of the German NUAC Klaus Trutzel KOSIS-Gemeinschaft Urban Audit c/o Amt für Stadtforschung und Statistik für Nürnberg und Fürth urbanaudit@stadt.nuernberg.de

2. Eurostat Working Party on Regional Statistics, 1 – 2 October 2012 2 Periodicity  In Germany we decided again to try an annual collection of all variables for NLC.  SCD collections have been postponed until the data for the cities are nearly complete.

3. Eurostat Working Party on Regional Statistics, 1 – 2 October 2012 3 List of variables  Most reductions of the data catalogue are experienced as a welcome lightening of the burden.  However, the German cities want to maintain comparability with past data collections and with the perception survey, e.g. criminality, some EC variables, household income, culture.  Some readily available variables are still collected for a more complete picture, e.g. bankruptcies, headquarters of enterprises traded at the stock-exchange.  Justification of some variables that were kept may be doubted, e. g. number of murders (as the only indicator for crime), number of theatres (but not visitors)

4. Eurostat Working Party on Regional Statistics, 1 – 2 October 2012 Eurostat Working Party on Regional Statistics, 1 – 2 October 2012 4 List of cities and LUZ  In Germany, the number of cities increased from 86 to 125, now including additional cities of 50,000 to 100,000 inhabitants.  DG Regio agreed to improve the selection of these cities based on population size and density by taking into account also the cities’ function as top-level urban centres.  Motivating these cities to cooperate will require extra efforts.

5. Eurostat Working Party on Regional Statistics, 1 – 2 October 2012 5 List of cities and LUZ cont.  Now, the formation of LUZ is requested for all 125 German UA cities.  This increases the number of German LUZ from 36 to 94.  The number of NUTS3 units included in the LUZ – for reasons of data availability they are the basic units of the German LUZ - from 144 to 243 i.e. almost two third of all German NUTS3 units.  3 existing LUZ changed their boundaries, two because of territorial reforms, one because of insufficient commuting relations.

6. Eurostat Working Party on Regional Statistics, 1 – 2 October 2012 6 • Organisation of the UA in Germany •  In Germany, an association of participating cities manages the UA in close cooperation with the Federal and State Statistical Offices. KOSIS-Gemeinschaft Urban Audit is now also recognised as an institution producing European official statistics. •  A staff of 2 experienced statisticians work exclusively for the UA: •  Downloads from official regional statistics database, datacollection from the cities and from 10 other data providers, organising expert estimations from the Micro-census and from labour market statistics Quality assurance, adjustments to EU definitions, flags and footnotes, transmission to Eurostat, reports to Eurostat •  Management of the association of participating cities, contact with city representatives in conferences and in an annual general assembly •  2013: Organisation of a special Urban Audit Day.

7. Eurostat Working Party on Regional Statistics, 1 – 2 October 2012 7 Presentation & application of the Urban Audit in Germany  So far, the cities and planning authorities did not take much notice of the UA as data source for comparative statistics. The data were considered to be too old.  The new annual data will improve the situation.  As part of the new round of data collection the GermanUA website is being improved substantially. The text parts were reorganised; the statistical data transmitted to Eurostat are now also offered for download and for interactive analysis with the DUVA system.  We now also have our own domain “urbanaudit.de”.

8. Eurostat Working Party on Regional Statistics, 1 – 2 October 2012 8 Presentation at Eurostat’s database website  Occasional users find it difficult to make the desired selection of data. >The necessary steps could be listed and the intermediate results should be shown.  When marking variables and cities for download, it should be possible to click on the first and last in the list and include the ones in between automatically by pressing the shift button.  The exact reference year should be displayed automatically for download with the other attributes.  If countries provide annual data for years for which this is not requested, the annual data should nevertheless be displayed for download.  Users still miss a graph and mapping tool.

9. Eurostat Working Party on Regional Statistics, 1 – 2 October 2012 9 Cities’ contact with the European Urban Audit  The EU Commission must be interested in a stronger identification of the cities with European development policy and therefore also with the UA as one of its databases. Eurostat should be interested in an stronger engagement of the cities as data providers.  So far, the efforts to establish closer links with the cities are much too weak to really reach the cities. > The NUACS should be requested to build up networks of participating cities and to organise regular meetings.  In addition, the Commission should consider to establish anadvisory committee of city representatives so that this project intended to promoted urban development could, in future, rely on more active participation of the cities in the collection and in the application of information on the quality of life in their cities.

10. Eurostat Working Party on Regional Statistics, 1 – 2 October 2012 10 Subjective assessments of the quality of life  The Perception Survey is an important addition to the objective UA data. Since 2006, ~ 20 German cities conduct a coordinated parallel survey to extend the inter-city comparisons within and across the national borders. Finnish cities have taken up the idea.  The new perception survey 2012 is scheduled for December.  It may not be too late to motivate cities in other European countries to join in. City networks like the one around the Swiss NSO could very well promote this idea.  It is a great advantage that the micro data are being exchanged among the participating cities and with DG Regio for targeted problem specific analyses.

11. Eurostat Working Party on Regional Statistics, 1 – 2 October 2012 11 Points fordiscussion  Assuming that it is EU policy to involve the cities more directly in EU regional development , what would be the appropriate measures to win the cities engagement in comparative evaluations of the Urban Audit and in the provision of data? Could the establishment and management of UA city networks become part of the UA funding policy?  Given the relative importance of regional development for reaching the EU2020 goals, would this not require a more visible engagement of Eurostat - with the adequate capacity of staff - in methodological and regional research to actively support this policy?  Cohesion policy is faced with great inner-city disparities hidden by average values for the cities. Methods need to be developed to disclose and measure these disparities in a comparable way.