Believing that the quality of life in their city has improved over the past five years are especially Eastern European cities, which seem to be included in a process of convergence with the rest of Europe. The opinions of residents of Polish cities are particularly positive: Bialystok and Gdansk have the highest percentages of citizens who have noticed an improvement (62% and 58.3%, respectively). An overall opposite picture emerges in Italy, as the percentages of those who think there has been an improvement are everywhere quite low (below 30%). A few exceptions emerge, such as Bari and Messina. In Bari, in particular, more than half the population (53.1%) believes that the quality of life in the city has improved over the past five years. This is one of the best results recorded at the European level. In Messina, the percentage is smaller but still significant (43.5%). In other cities such as Bergamo, Brescia, Naples, Palermo, Milan, Turin, and Bologna, between 15 and 30% of residents think they have seen a positive change. The lowest value is expressed in Rome: here only 2.9% of residents think there has been an improvement, placing the Italian capital in last place among all 85 cities analyzed. The cities where the highest shares of people who think the quality of life in their city has worsened in the last five years are observed are all Italian: they are Reggio di Calabria (where 65.8% of residents think so), followed by Venice, Rome, Parma, Catania, Bolzano/Bozen and Florence.
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