Website: Statistics: Cities (Urban Audit)

European cities face a variety of challenges: ranging from ageing populations, through migration and urban sprawl, to counteracting climate change. By contrast, Europe's dynamic cities attract investment, people and services, thereby stimulating creativity and innovation. Cities are seen as both the source and solution of economic, environmental and social challenges. Therefore, cities are central to achieve the Europe 2020 targets of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.

Assessing the current situation is a prerequisite for any improvement, development and future monitoring. Cities Statistics includes a range of indicators covering most aspects relating to quality of life in cities in the EU, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey (demography, housing, health, labour market, education, environment, etc.).

Data are collected for several levels:
- A City is a local administrative unit (LAU) where the majority of the population lives in an urban centre of at least 50,000 inhabitants.
- The Functional Urban Area consists of a city and its commuting zone (this was formerly known as larger urban zone - LUZ).
- The Greater City is an approximation of the urban centre when this stretches far beyond the administrative city boundaries.

Data availability differs from topic to topic, as the statistics are provided on a voluntary basis only (there is no EU legislation on the collection of these statistics). The data collection exercise (formerly known as Urban Audit) is undertaken by national statistical institutes, the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy and Eurostat.

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