In EU capitals, residents of Sofia and Bucharest least happy about noise, air quality
Residents of Romania’s capital city Bucharest and Bulgaria’s capital Sofia are least satisfied with the quality of the air and the noise levels in their cities, a survey by EU statistics agency Eurostat of people living in EU capital cities has found.
Dublin, Helsinki, Vienna and Luxembourg were the EU capital cities with the highest proportions of their inhabitants very or rather satisfied with air quality and noise levels in their town, in contrast notably to inhabitants of Bucharest and Sofia.
“Generally speaking, please tell me if you are very satisfied, rather satisfied, rather unsatisfied or not at all satisfied with the quality of the air and the noise level in your city?” inhabitants of 83 European cities were asked in 2015.
Results show significant disparities between capital cities in the European Union (EU), with levels of satisfaction regarding air quality ranging from 22 per cent to 88 per cent and for noise levels from 31 per cent to 82 per cent.
Among EU capital cities in 2015, at least three-quarters of inhabitants were very or rather satisfied with the quality of the air in their city in Dublin, Vienna and Helsinki (all 88 per cent), followed by Luxembourg (83 per cent), Stockholm (77 per cent), Ljubljana (76 per cent) and Tallinn (75 per cent).
In contrast, the lowest shares of the resident population satisfied with the quality of the air were observed in Bucharest (22 per cent), Sofia (28 per cent), Paris (30 per cent), Madrid (31 per cent) and Rome (32 per cent).
Overall, a majority of inhabitants were satisfied with air quality in 20 of the 28 EU capital cities.
Regarding the level of noise perceived, Dublin registered the highest proportion of the population very or rather satisfied (82 per cent), ahead of Helsinki (81 per cent), Luxembourg (79 per cent), Vienna (78 per cent), Riga (77 per cent), Vilnius (76 per cent) and London (75 per cent).
Conversely, Bucharest recorded the lowest share of people globally satisfied with the noise level in the city (31 per cent), followed by Sofia (36 per cent), Athens (43 per cent), Madrid, Rome and Valletta (all 45 per cent) as well as Warsaw (46 per cent).
Overall, a majority of inhabitants were satisfied with noise levels in 21 of the 28 EU capital cities, Eurostat said.
(Photo: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)
