Satisfaction with Urban Environment in European Cities: the role of city size, income, location, traffic congestion and pollution tolerance
Satisfaction with the urban environment is among the crucial elements of the quality of urban life. This study examines the results of the most recent wave of the Eurobarometer survey (year 2023), covering 83 European cities, to explore which city characteristics are associated with higher and lower perceived quality of different urban environment areas - air quality, noise levels, green spaces and city cleanliness. Our empirical results reveal that residents of larger European cities are less satisfied with urban environment, even when controlling for actual air pollution and other relevant city characteristics. Higher perceived quality of green spaces, as well as coastal city location (near a sea or major lake), is associated with higher satisfaction with air quality and urban noise conditions. Income level is positively associated with perceived quality of green spaces and satisfaction with city cleanliness. There is also a clear evidence that residents of southern European non-EU cities exhibit high tolerance towards air pollution - satisfaction with air quality in these cities is systematically higher than would be expected given actual air pollution and other relevant city characteristics such as city size, location and green spaces. We conclude that although environmental quality is likely to remain a natural advantage of smaller European cities, improvements in green spaces and reductions in traffic congestion could still generate non-negligible gains in urban environmental satisfaction irrespectively of city size.
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