Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on "The European Commission Final Report on 'The Urban Audit'"

(2001/C 253/04)

THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS,

having regard to the European Commission Final Report on "The Urban Audit";

having regard to the European Commission Communication "Towards an Urban agenda in the European Union (COM(97) 197 final";

having regard to the European Communication Sustainable Urban Development in the European Union: a Framework for Action and the Urban Forum held in Vienna in 1998, at which an action on Improving Comparative Information on Urban Conditions was endorsed;

having regard to the decision of its Bureau of 11 April 2000 to draw up, in accordance with the fifth paragraph of Article 265 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, an Opinion on The European Commission Final Report on the Urban Audit, and to assign the preparation of this opinion to Commission 4 - Spatial Planning, Urban Issues, Energy and Environment;

having regard to the Draft Opinion (CdR 190/2000 rev. 2) adopted by Commission 4 on 9 February 2001, for which the rapporteur was Mr Keith Whitmore (UK, ELDR);

whereas the publication of the Urban Audit allows Member States to consider comparative data where available on 58 cities of the Union;

whereas the publication of the Second Report on Economic and Social Competitiveness and Cohesion in Europe allows Member States to debate the role of urban policy in developing the Community's territory,

adopted the following opinion unanimously at its 38th plenary session on 4 and 5 April 2001 (meeting of 4 April).

1. The Committee of the Regions' views concerning the European Commission's Urban Audit

1.1. The Committee of the Regions welcomes the publication of the pilot phase of the European Commission's Urban Audit, and considers it a valuable addition to the growing body of data available on quality of life in urban areas across Europe.

1.2. The Committee of the Regions takes the view that among the strengths of the Urban Audit is its breadth and scope. It presents data across a range of economic, social, cultural and environmental domains, rather than take a more limited and sectoral view, which can be a weakness of other statistics on urban conditions.

1.3. The Committee of the Regions welcomes the involvement of the official EU statistical body Eurostat in the future refinement and validation of some of the data in the Urban Audit. The Committee also understands that the Eurocities network is involved in developing the indicators, and this is very welcome from the point of view of piloting the methodology on the ground.

1.4. However, while welcoming the qualitative approach demonstrated in the Urban Audit (as opposed to a purely quantitative approach), the Committee nevertheless has reservations as to the genuine comparability of the data, given that much of what can be termed "quality of life" in Europe's main cities is context-specific - i.e. it is influenced by local, regional or national attitudes, perceptions and culture.

1.5. The Committee of the Regions also has reservations as to the completeness of the information, given that the Urban Audit contains many gaps in key data cells. The Committee therefore has some doubts about the potential interpretation of the data, and the policy conclusions which may be made on the basis of such interpretation.

1.6. The Committee of the Regions would have grave reservations if the Urban Audit were to be used to determine the future allocation of policy priorities and resources, without comprehensive refinements being made to the methodology, the completeness of the data and the interpretation of the information collected.

1.7. Moreover, the Committee of the Regions finds that the Urban Audit must be seen as only one contribution to the wider urban debate, which will be influenced not least by the European Spatial Development Perspective, the Second Report on Economic and Social Cohesion, and the Cohesion Forum scheduled for May next year.

2. The Committee of the Regions' recommendations concerning the Urban Audit

2.1. The Committee of the Regions considers that the Urban Audit contributes to the understanding of the changing condition of European cities and would welcome a series of interpretative reports on the main findings of the Audit, in order to shed more light on the emerging policy implications.

2.2. The Committee of the Regions calls on the European Commission to develop an integrated approach to urban issues across its own Directorates-General, as urban is a horizontal issue requiring extensive co-ordination.

2.3. The involvement of Eurostat will help validate the data and the Committee of the Regions is pleased to learn that Eurostat may incorporate some of the Audit's more robust indicators, into the official body of statistical knowledge at European level.

2.4. The Committee of the Regions cautions against the Urban Audit being used as the main instrument by which future urban policy is determined and assessed.

2.5. The Committee of the Regions welcomes involvement of the Eurocities' network in piloting the methodology and developing the indicators, and advocates the full involvement also of local and regional governments in the follow-up to the Audit. This will allow for a "bottom-up" perspective to be brought to defining major issues, rather than an overly top-down approach.

2.6. A similar Audit, using rather fewer but more valid and verifiable indicators should be extended to the accession states in due course. At this stage, the Audit is confined to the existing 15 EU Member States.

2.7. The Committee of the Regions calls on Member States to look at their own indicators, compiled at local, regional and national levels, to ensure that an internally coherent picture is built up within each Member State itself; this will ultimately help comparability between Member States at any given level.

2.8. The Committee of the Regions believes that whilst figures and data are important, supplementary information such as that gathered through subjective surveys would assist in building up a clear picture of quality of life, which is, in many domains, a matter of perception.

2.9. Important concepts such as citizenship should be taken into account when assessments of participation in public life are being made.

2.10. The Committee of the Regions points out that many of the statistics, which seem on the face of it to be objective and comparable, are in reality highly context-specific, i.e. they are deeply embedded in their own Member State policy frameworks, and these can vary enormously from one country to the next, such as methods of assessing levels of unemployment.

2.11. The Committee of the Regions believes therefore that where there are "common yardsticks" operable across Europe (e.g. the International Labour Organisation definition of unemployment, or the International Crime and Victimisation Survey), the Urban Audit should include these as an external "control" or objective comparator.

2.12. The Committee of the Regions welcomes the classification of cities into "small, medium and large", "northern and southern", "central and peripheral" and "capital and non-capital"; as a valid framework for analysis. However, as there is no analysis of which particular factor, or combination of factors, influences which particular quality of life indicators within and across each category, this limits the usefulness of the classification, and therefore the Committee calls on the European Commission to carry out the necessary next step of assessing the impact of these factors on quality of life.

2.13. Cities wishing to join the Urban Audit initiative in the future should be compelled to provide information in all the domains, where the data exist; that is, individual cities should not be allowed to withhold information they consider to be sensitive, as this would diminish the quality of the overall final product.

2.14. The Committee of the Regions suggests that the European Commission should concentrate in the near future on building up complete information from the 58 original participating cities, rather than at this stage seek to expand the participation much further. The Committee appreciates that the Audit was a complex undertaking (i.e. 58 cities, assessing 21 quality of life domains, over 3 points in time and at 3 different spatial levels) but notes that only one city managed to supply full information for each domain across the three benchmark years. The gaps in information should be filled.

2.15. Exceptionally, London and Paris should be invited to join the Audit as soon as possible. Even though they are substantially larger in scale than the 58 cities audited to date, there is a strong case for assessing their quality of life on their own terms. Indeed, the European Commission's London Study of 1997, now in need of updating, has pointed to a number of emerging issues such as the growing segmentation within the city, which can help enrich the interpretation of some of the findings in the Audit.

2.16. The Committee of the Regions considers that the European Commission could do more to build on the Committee of the Regions 1999 Study "Evaluating the Quality of life in European Regions and Cities - theoretical conceptualisation, classical and innovative indicators", which pointed out a number of emerging issues that indicators alone cannot capture.

2.17. Much has been made of the idea of a "European Model" of urban life, - i.e. a city which is relatively compact in terms of territory occupied, and limited in population to under about 10 million at the top end of the scale, compared to the "megalopolises" of 25 million upwards forecast for cities in South America. It would be interesting to compare such contrasting models in terms of sustainability and life quality, and the Committee believes that at some future date, the European Commission should undertake such a comparison.

2.18. The Committee of the Regions believes that the European Urban Audit should be extended in due course to cover small and medium-sized towns, in which the majority of Europe's urban-dwellers live.

2.19. A useful analysis could be made between the key findings of the Urban Audit, and the findings in the relevant sections of the Second Report on Economic and Social Cohesion.

2.20. The Committee of the Regions recommends that the proposed Cohesion Forum, scheduled for May 2001, should be used as a major opportunity to discuss in depth the future of urban policy, related horizontal and sectoral policies, and appropriate spatial planning frameworks, in the context of balanced development of the European territory.

3. Conclusion

3.1. The Committee of the Regions considers that the Urban Audit will be useful to policy-makers and partners working on city development within each Member State, and that the European Commission should be congratulated. At the very least the Audit contributes a substantial amount of verifiable information on 58 of Europe's major cities. Across the Union, the Audit can help forge links between European cities on a bilateral or network basis, in order to pursue findings of common interest.

3.2. The Committee of the Regions considers that the Urban Audit will be a useful part of any observatory or think-tank set up under the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP), the Interreg Community Initiative and the Urban Community Initiative, each of which have specific sums of money allocated to them for information and good practice exchange, and strongly recommends that the European Commission attempts to co-ordinate these different but related initiatives.

3.3. The Committee of the Regions believes that the European Commission in particular needs to take advantage of this clearly integrated approach, to overcome fragmentation and to stimulate better corporate working within its own Directorates-General, where responsibilities for urban issues are shared.

3.4. The Committee of the Regions believes that the Audit can make a significant contribution to understanding, if the information contained within it is supplemented by information at the level of the locality on the one hand such as perception surveys, and on the other hand, at European level, by the use of objective, pan-European standards (such as International Labour Organisation employment statistics).

3.5. The Committee of the Regions believes that even with sound interpretation, indicators alone cannot take the place of evaluation and policy development, and the Urban Audit cannot be used in isolation to determine future urban policy. It should certainly not be used to determine future allocations of EU aid. It is nevertheless a most useful instrument for steering urban policy at European level, and for providing specific programmes for revitalising associative life, in accordance with the results of the Urban Forum organised by the European Commission in Vienna in November 1998.

3.6. The Committee of the Regions believes therefore that in the long-run, the Audit will realise its full potential for Member States only when there is a concerted attempt made to interpret key data in ways that policy-makers can use. This includes demonstrating where possible, sound causal relationships between the absence or presence of key socio-economic, environmental and cultural factors, and subsequent perceptions of quality of life.

Brussels, 4 April 2001.

The President

of the Committee of the Regions

Jos Chabert