Eindhoven as worldwide number three when it comes to quality of life. Number one if you only consider the European cities. According to figures from database Numbeo, Eindhoven is almost at the top of the list. So after being the smartest region, now also the nicest? We dived into the figures.
Numbeo may not be very well-known. Nevertheless, the results of this research agency are quoted worldwide when it comes to measuring the living standards in cities. The organisation is based in Belgrade and is led by Mladen Adamovic, a software engineer who previously worked for Google. What exactly does Numbeo investigate and how are the data collected?
Six factors
The quality of life in cities is measured by Numbeo on the basis of six factors: cost of living and purchasing power, affordability of houses, pollution (air, water etc), safety, health care and traffic (travel time).
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Quality of life index of Europe (source: Numbeo)
Data collection
Numbeo is a crowd-sourced database, which means that it uses input provided by people worldwide. Figures from other sources are also added twice a year, for example from websites of supermarkets, taxi companies, government agencies, news reports and other surveys.
Through the Numbeo website, everyone can contribute to enriching the data, by answering a number of questions per subject. ‘Cost of living’ includes, for example, house prices in the city centre and beyond, but also the costs of an average restaurant visit (three-course menu) to McDonalds’ prices. When it comes to safety, pollution and health care, more subjective factors play a role. How safe do you feel when walking down the street during the day or in the evening? How satisfied are you with the skills and competences of the local medical staff? How clean is your city?
Eindhoven at the top
Eindhoven ranks third in the worldwide list of 219 cities, just behind Canberra (Australia) and Raleigh, North Carolina (USA). Eindhoven scores high on healthcare, among other things. If you look at the list of 77 European cities, Eindhoven is at the very top, leaving Copenhagen (4), Munich (7) and Helsinki (9) behind.
The interesting thing about Numbeo is that new input is constantly coming in and rankings are constantly changing. Yesterday Eindhoven had a total score of 210.15, today that is 209.60. The organization states to use the ‘wisdom of the crowd’. So far, 393,754 people from 8647 cities contributed. The number of people from Eindhoven is still modest. Depending on the category, it involves 18 to 111 contributors.
A small group, but very satisfied with their city.
