According to EUROPOLIS 2018 – a prestigious ranking of the Polish Robert Schuman Foundation, Sopot ranks first among the Polish cities in terms of civic engagement! It is for the first time since the launch of the ranking in 2015 that Warsaw yielded its top position. Below you can find more about the structure of the ranking and about what the No. 1 position means for Sopot in relation to Tri-City and in the national terms.
EUROPOLIS 2018 – what is the ranking about?
The EURPOLIS 2018 ranking covered all the 66 Polish cities and towns which have the status of a county (Polish: powiat). What is interesting, Sopot is the smallest among all the ranking participants in terms of area size. The principles of the ranking are simple. Data included in the measuring criteria are divided into 5 categories:
- exercise of active and passive suffrage,
- membership of public organizations,
- engagement in public life,
- promotion of civic attitudes,
- openness of the city to citizens’ needs.
A city may score from 0 to 100 points in each category, and the final score is an average of the 5 values. Sopot scored 62.88 points, which gave it a winning margin over Warsaw, which was the second best with 54.56 points, and over Rzeszow (50,09 points), which was the third. One has to highlight a high score of the neighbouring Gdynia ( 45.89 points), which came eighth in the ranking. Each city can reach out to the creativity of its residents and include them in decision making processes in various ways. Thus, what features have made Sopot so outstanding?
Leader in participative budgeting
Sopot ranked high in terms of all five categories. In terms of exercising active and passive suffrage and membership of residents in public organizations the city took the fifth and the eight positions, respectively. Engagement of residents in public life gave Sopot the first position, slightly ahead of Swinoujscie. Sopot residents are the most active participants of public assemblies and they send the biggest numbers of enquiries to the city authorities. At the same time, 24% of the residents have declared active participation in their local communities within the recent three years, which practically means that Sopot, as a part of Tri-City, is a home of those thinking independently and participating actively in local policy.
According to the Report, over 50% of Sopot residents work pro bono, and as much as 90% have confidence in the police, which means that they regard their city as a safe place. Sopot residents also excel in donating 1% of their taxes to public and charitable organizations. Thanks to all this Sopot ranked first in terms of promoting civic attitudes, which are still poorly developed in Poland when compared to other European countries. Sopot score in all those categories is a proof of a high level of social capital accumulated in Tri-City.
Leader in participative budgeting and civic engagement
The last category, namely openness of city administration to civic engagement of their residents shows very clearly that Tri-City is a good place to live. In this category, Gdynia was the best within Tri-City, as an undoubted leader in social consultations. It was immediately followed by Sopot, the residents of which enjoy the biggest participative budget in Poland, which amounts to as much as 5.3% of the city expenses, including more than 8% of all capital expenditure! Sopot residents have decided i.a. about providing PLN 1,000,000.00 for the operation of round-the-clock rescue services, for cleaning the surrounding forests and buying more public trash cans to keep the city clean. The participative budget also accommodated some district investments.
There were 4 Pomeranian Cities in EUROPOLIS 2018 ranking, beside the great results of Sopot and Gdynia we can also find there Slupsk (32 place) and Gdansk (41 place). Ranking results demonstrate that Tri-City is abundant in residents who spend their free time to better public services, who think independently and who raise social capital to higher levels. This attitude has for a long time been supported by local authorities.
