The Barcelona World Health Institute (Isglobal), a center backed by the La Caixa Foundation, presented a new tool: the Hudi.
Hudi is a complex indicator that evaluates 917 European cities based on 13 indicators associated with people’s health and well -being and are divided into four areas: urban design, sustainable transport, environmental quality and greenery accessibility. Hudi is the result of scientific work published in The Lancet Planetary Health. The data for all cities are publicly available at https://isglobalranking.org/hudi/.
In order for the cities to be comparable, they have been grouped into five categories depending on the number of residents: large metropolitan, metropolitan, medium and small cities and small cities.
The 13 indicators evaluated include urban density, dwelling density, hiking, cycling and public transport infrastructure, air pollution levels, the ability to mitigate and manage heat and accessibility of green spaces. The index gives a score between 0 and 10 for each of the indicators analyzed and sets a combined Hudi score.
Little cities lead Hudi
In general, the category with the highest HUDI scores are small cities, which include all European cities with a population of between 50,000 and 200,000. Pamplona (Spain), Geneva (Switzerland) and Harlow (United Kingdom), all small cities, lead the Hudi rating in all categories with scores of 6.8, 6.65 and 6.64, respectively. “The differences in the Hudi score are often very small.
However, Hudi shows trends and none of the 917 cities achieves a score of 7 or higher than 10, which gives us an idea of ​​the margins of improving health and prosperity through urban planning in Europe, “explains Federica Montana, a researcher at Isglobal and isglobal.
The large metropolitan cities have generally scored better in urban planning indicators (dwelling density, compact constructions) and sustainable transport (opportunities for walking and cycling and number of public transport stops), especially those in northern Europe and some in Spain.
On the contrary, smaller cities have a better quality environment (air pollution, green and lower impacts of the urban thermal island), with higher ratings on the best quality air and mitigation indicators, especially in northern Europe.
Athens ranks 88th with 5.86.
Differences between Western and Eastern Europe
“One of the trends we have noticed is that Hudi’s lower scores tend to concentrate on Eastern European countries, such as Romania, Bulgaria and Poland. On the other hand, in cities in Western Europe, with remarkable rallies in the United Kingdom, Spain and Sweden, we find cities with the highest ratings, “says Natalie Mueller, Isglobal researcher and authors of the study.
Is not a final ranking
“Hudi is not meant to be a final ranking of cities, but rather a first approach that uses only open spatial data to see how European cities of all sizes attribute and compare to providing a healthy urban planning to their residents,” says Mark Nieuwenhui Urban Health of Isglobal.
Top cities by category
The cities with the best HUDI score in each category are Madrid (Spain), with a score of 6.04 in the major metropolitan cities, Lisbon (Portugal), with a score of 6.09 in the Metropolitan Cities, Bilbao (Spain), with 6.35s in 6.35 in Spain, 6.35. size and Cambobaso (Italy), with a score of 6.02 in the small cities complex.
Source: Skai
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