Tallinners Generally Content with Life in Capital
Tallinners are generally content with life in the city, putting them largely on the positive side of the ledger in Eurostat's Urban Audit project.
Copenhagen led the pack while Athens brought up the rear in the findings from the 2012-2013 data collection period, published at the end of 2013.
A total of 89 percent of Tallinners said they were either completely or mainly satisfied with life in the city, Marika Kivilaid and Mihkel Servinski wrote in the Statistics Estonia blog. Although that seems high, 14 capitals had even a higher percentage.
Some 37 percent of respondents said it was easy to find work in Tallinn, which puts the Estonian capital around average in the EU. There were only four capitals in the EU (Prague, Helsinki, Stockholm and Bratislava) where over half of the population considered it easy to find work. The corresponding figure was under 10 percent in Lisbon and Athens.
Only 18 percent of Tallinners said it was easy or fairly easy to find good housing for a reasonable price in Tallinn, which also puts the Estonian capital in the middle of the pack.
The results in this category were quite the opposite of others: while Athens occupied the bottom rungs in most of the results, 61 percent of Athens residents said it was easy to find good, well-priced living space - the only capital in the EU where over half of the population felt so.
Helsinki and Stockholm residents found it was very difficult to find good, suitably priced dwelling space; only in Amsterdam and Paris was this perceived by more as very difficult.
Vilnius and Riga inhabitants saw housing in their respective cities as less of a problem than did Tallinners in theirs.
The most problematic areas in Tallinn were led by road infrastructure, picked by 50 percent of the respondents as being a significant problem. No other city's population saw roads as being as great of a problem. It was folioed by health services and unemployment. Air pollution, noise and housing were seen as least problematic, identified by only 10-15 percent of people.