About 90 per cent of EU residents expressed satisfaction with their life in their city, according to the EU 2023 Report on Quality of Life in European Cities.
With two cities each, Switzerland and Germany dominate the top ten list regarding people’s satisfaction with life in their cities.
Although satisfaction across EU cities has decreased compared to 2019, the report underscores that it remains high, with nine out of ten people being content.
Amid the overall decline, results confirm what was already observed in 2019, that is significant improvements in perceived quality of life in cities in eastern Member States.
However, when asked about changes in the quality of life over the past five years, the majority of respondents across all sampled cities, including those in the EU, stated that it has stayed unchanged.
More specifically, 31 per cent of residents stated that quality of life has improved, 40 per cent indicated no change, and approximately 29 per cent noted a decline.
Among other things, the report outlined that smaller cities are perceived as a better place to live in many aspects, including safety, availability of public spaces, healthcare, housing affordability, and local public administrations.
In addition, smaller cities are considered to be better places to live for older people, families with young children, and migrants.
Around 89 per cent of people living in a city with less than 250,000 inhabitants are satisfied with living in that city.
According to this report, the top ten cities that had the highest number of residents satisfied with their living cities are as follows:
- Zurich, Switzerland (97 per cent)
- Copenhagen, Denmark (96 per cent)
- Groningen, Netherlands (96 per cent)
- Gdansk, Poland (95 per cent)
- Leipzig, Germany (95 per cent)
- Stockholm, Sweden (95 per cent)
- Geneva, Switzerland (95 per cent)
- Rostock, Germany (94 per cent)
- Cluj-Napoca, Romania (94 per cent)
- Braga, Portugal (94 per cent)
Among those, Groningen, Braga and Gdansk are among the top ten cities considered as the best to live in for immigrants as well.
Other cities considered as best places to live for immigrants include Cardiff (United Kingdom), Lisbon (Portugal), Barcelona (Spain), Tyneside (United Kingdom), Hamburg (Germany), Helsinki (Finland) and Glasgow (United Kingdom).
On the other hand, the cities that got the lowest scores regarding the people’s satisfaction with life in their city are Palermo (Italy), Athens (Greece), Istanbul (Türkiye), Tirana (Albania), Naples (Italy), Belgrade (Serbia), Rome (Italy), Skopje (North Macedonia), Miskolc (Hungary) and Podgorica (Montenegro).
The report includes 83 cities across the EU, European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries, the United Kingdom, the Western Balkans and Türkiye. It contains data from 71,153 interviews, and a sample of at least 839 residents was interviewed in each city, between January and April this year.
The previous report, which was published in 2020, also showed that nine out of ten people in Europe are happy with their city life and that residents felt safer in smaller cities back then, too.
