“In Europe, jobs, enterprises and higher education institutions are mostly in towns, which play a fundamental role for EU competition in the global economy. However, town life also implies problems such as social marginalization and spatial segregation”. Those were the results of a survey carried out for the European Commission on the basis of the statistics collected within the frame of the so-called “European Town Audit”, which involved 27 national statistic institutes, with coordination by Eurostat. Data with over 300 variables were collected, describing the quality of life in European towns. According to Danuta Hübner, in charge of regional policy, it is a study which “may help to identify and quantify the challenges we are faced with, and to better address our investments in town areas”. In accordance with the survey, the per capita GDP in the cities with over one million inhabitants is 25% higher than the average of the whole EU, and 40% higher than national average. Therefore, we can see that towns are “the driving force of economic growth throughout Europe”. However, there is a paradox: “in spite of town job concentration, the residents do not always take advantage of employment opportunities”. However, unemployment, equalling 10% in all towns, reaches 60% in underprivileged areas. Furthermore, town people are much more educated than the people living in other European areas.
