Quality of Living Ranking for Russian Cities (Top – 20) – 2010

Ranking is developed in cooperation with The Union of Architects of Russia

Object and methodology of the research.

The aim of the Ranking is to define which of the biggest and economically developed cities of Russia can offer its citizens the most comfortable and high quality urban infrastructure and environment.
It is important to point out that the ranking considers the level of income of the population just indirectly. Institute URBANICA presumes that living standards have just an indirect impact on urban environment – only with the help of indicators influencing consumers’ demands industries (trade, leisure-time industry).

Rating methodology:

Ranking includes 20 Russian cities, basic Russian centers of attraction of human and financial capital. The list of these cities includes: Sochi, Samara, Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, Saint-Petersburg, Omsk, Kazan, Saratov, Voronezh, Chelyabinsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg, Ufa, Khabarovsk, Novosibirsk, Vladivostok, Krasnodar, Volgograd, Perm. The criterion for a city to be included into Top-20 was not only population size but also experts’ opinion of Institute URBANICA on the role that the city plays in the economic life in Russia. That is why Vladivostok, Khabarovsk and Sochi appear in the Ranking despite of being on the 22nd, 27th and 52nd position correspondingly in terms of population size.
Rating is based on estimation of Quality-of-life indicators that can be divided into 5 groups:

• City infrastructures
• Social services
• Economic situation (economic stability/dynamics)
• Security
• Environment