Beyond the measurement of the urban well-being: which perception of quality of life in the European cities?[Au-delà de la mesure du bien-être en milieu urbain : quelle perception de la qualité de vie dans les villes européennes ?]

While numerous researches in the scientific literature are focused on the well-being subject in cities using objective indicators, there is still few published works today focusing on the subjective dimension concerning the local people's satisfaction towards their urban environment. The issue of quality of life plays an increasing role in a context of growing competition between cities. The latter are regularly assert their strengths on it to attract new residents. The objective of this article is to propose a comparative study of the urban quality of life across EU cities based on the Urban Audit. More precisely, our article analyses the existence of a spatial differentiation of the perceived quality of life by the inhabitants by proposing a multi-dimensional approach of this question. The subsequent construction of a composite index and a typology of European cities for 2006 and 2012 clearly shows a geography of the quality of life at European level and the influence of the socio-economic and territorial condition in that perception. However, there are also a number of cities in our sample with good results for some indicators and non-performing results for others raising questions as to the role of public policies for urban development.