youthful cities affordable index
TRANSCRIPT
C O N T E N T S
WHY AFFORDABILITY?
AFFORDABILITY INITIATIVES
CITIES AS AFFORDABLE PLACES 3
2
17 18
MINIMUM WAGE [1OF 9]
MOVIE TICKET [2 OF 9]
RENT [3 OF 9]
EGGS [4 OF 9]
TRANSIT [5 OF 9]
BURGERS [6 OF 9]
FLIGHTS [7 OF 9]
TAXATION [8 OF 9]
CONCERT [ 9 OF 9]
OVERALL CITIES SCORE
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I N T R O D U C T I O N
S E L E C T C I T I E S
Y O U T H A F F O R D A B I L I T Y S E R I E S
PROBLEMS & SOLUTIONS
FINAL DATA 20
21 22
A P P E N D I X
WHY WE’RE DIFFERENT 4
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YOUTHFUL CITIES
Cities are our collective future Today’s young people are at the centre of building better cities.Youth add urgency, vibrancy, creativity, and digital age talent to cities.
YouthfulCities is a global social venture and has worked has worked
with thousands of youth in 65 of the largest cities across six major
global regions to build a way to measure and compare cities
from a youthful perspective. The YouthfulCities Index is a first-of-its-kind statistical ranking of the
world’s top cities from a youth perspective.
WH
Y A
FFO
RDA
BILI
TY? Affordability is an
incredibly important issue: Young people from around the world have told us that it’s their key urban priority. Preliminary results from our survey of 10,000+ global youth show it to be more important than having access to education, having a great film/music culture, and having access to healthcare.
Keeping all the above in mind, we want to answer the following: In which city do all
the aspects of affordability from a youth perspective best align?
Read further and find out.
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You rely on the brains and brawn of young people. You need to ensure that young talent, creativity and
energy is nurtured, in order to foster the social, cultural and economic capital of this crucial demographic and
your city as a whole. We dare you to guarantee that you will be a place young
people can afford to live today and tomorrow. See pages 17-18 to read
about a few key urban initiatives that city governments are undertaking to ensure they don’t price substantial portions
of young people out of their cities.
Your bottom lines rely on young people. We want to afford your products or services. But you often price
yourself out of the market. Take a cue from the growing contingent of companies working with municipalities
to promote affordability, as
well as those promoting the sharing economy. These businesses are working towards cities as more affordable places and
are encouraging all of us to capitalize on our underused assets, which in turn pushes affordability. Read more on
pages 17-18 about how companies and cities are working together to make cities more low-cost.
We pose this to city governments:
We pose this challenge to companies:
Our collective challenge is to make cities more affordable for youth.
The YouthfulCities Affordability Index takes 25 of the world’s biggest cities and compares the cost of everyday items
like food, housing and public transit.This index also covers some basic entertainment costs, since letting loose on a budget
is key to making a city an exhilarating, liveable and youthful place. These include the average cost of concerts at small,
medium and large venues, the cost of a movie ticket, the cost of fast food and the cost to fly away to a nearby city when
you’re itching for a quick getaway.
CITI
ES A
S A
FFO
RDA
BLE
PLA
CES
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WH
Y W
E’RE
DIF
FERE
NT
Looking at the results, you’ll see that Paris takes the top spot, followed by Toronto, Los Angeles, Chicago and Berlin. These aren’t all cities that normally place at the top of similar lists. What’s happening in these cities, however, is that minimum wage has come to be framed as a key policy area not only for young people, but for the growing overall demographic that relies on minimum wage jobs. In these places a fair wage has become a key concern for policy makers too, as they’ve begun to wake up to the reality that youth are highly mobile and likely to leave town if a city isn’t doing enough to protect their pocketbook.
Since youth rely on entry level jobs when they enter the workforce, we feel tying costs to an hour of minimum wage labour is the best way to measure a city’s affordability from a youth perspective. And the fact that it’s within the legislative reach of many of the municipalities in our Index to increase wages only adds to the impact of this factor. Measuring it this way, we look at affordability from both a cost perspective, as well as from an entry-level income perspective. Both sides of the coin, we feel, are necessary to accurately state how reasonably priced life in any given city is..
Our Index is different in that we place a strong emphasis on base
wages. Too often, discussions about affordability focus solely on the cost of everyday items, products and services, usually normalized to U.S. dollars, and
indexed against a baseline city. We think these fail to take into account the
varying levels of income present in each city. Our Affordability Index is unique in the way we measure costs as relative to
one hour of minimum wage labour in each of our cities.
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0
KI N71.59
NR B261.01
MX C474.12
SH A598.33
MA N612.84
SP633.63
LA G644.64
MU M648.77
LI M663.48
BO G679.15
JO H680.94
CA I686.71
IS T733.41
BA733.85
SE O791.45
LO N810.52
NY C867.40
TO K839.54
RO M869.68
BE R885.78DA L
880.20
CH I889.48
LO S890.60
TO R896.48
PAR902.23
D A L L A S
R O M E
N E W Y O R K C I T Y
T O K Y O
L O N D O N
S E O U L
B U E N O S A I R E S
I S TA N B U L
C A I R O
J O H A N N E S B U R G
B O G TA
L I M A
M U M B A I
L A G O S
S A O PA U L O
M A N I L A
S H A N G H A I
M E X I C O C I T Y
N A I R O B I
K I N S H A S A
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PA R I ST O R O N T O
L O S A N G E L E SC H I C A G O
B E R L I N
NORTH AMERICA
AFRICA
ASIA
LATIN AMERICA
EUROPE
OV
ERA
LL C
ITIE
S SC
ORE
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We know affordability is the top priority for young people. And the results of this index prove the important role that
a fair minimum wage plays in a city’s overall affordability. Paris, the most affordable city, sits in the top spot largely
because of its high base wage. In fact, each of the top five cities in this Index have seen minimum wage become a hot
button political issue recently. But a fair minimum wage is just one way municipal governments can make cities more
affordable for the important youth demographic.
This list highlights initiatives cities around the world that are undertaking in order to make urban areas more affordable for youth:
Young people in Rome get a break on municipal Public Transportation costs. This municipal program gets those earning less than €20,000 an automatic 50% reduction in an annual pass. Prices can be further discounted up to 90% according to personal health and family issues.
This list would be amiss if we left out the recent
moves made in Germany to eliminate all tuition fees. This
returns Germany to the list of a handful of nations, including Norway
and Panama, that offer university for free to domestic and international students.
Launched by the Ministry
of Youth, those under 35 interested in
homeownership but without the necessary capital for a
downpayment can access funding that will cover up to 5% of their first
mortgage. Across Italy, €600,000 has been set aside by the federal government
to fund this project over the next three years.
Dis
coun
ted
Tran
sit
Free
Uni
vers
al
Pos
t Sec
onda
ry
Subs
idiz
ed M
ortg
ages
ROME
BERL
IN
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Discounts on public transit emerges as a theme, as Bogota’s public transit system
(SITP) gives discounts to young people who qualify for social benefits. Youth
who belong to SISBEN the agency that identifies beneficiaries, gives
breaks on the amount of money paid for bus fares. D
isco
unte
d Tr
ansi
t
Dis
coun
ted
Tran
sit
Hou
sing
Sub
sidy
Affo
rdab
le H
ousi
ngBO
GOTA
TEL AVIV
PARIS Colombia’s Ministry of Commerce Vive Colombia Joven - Youth Card program promotes overall affordability among 14 to 28 year olds. Discounts and benefits cover everything from housing, food, clothing, health and welfare as well as air and ground transportation. The free program has a specific focus on youth travel within the country and in turn benefits the commercial sector, offering multiple discounts and benefits in tandem with various local partners.
Affordability rules post secondary education, as students across France can access the APL housing subsidy. It’s available to all students, whether a citizen of France, the European Union or otherwise.
Youth in Paris can take advantage of reduced
rates for Paris’ popular, privately owned Vélib bike sharing program,
as well as cheaper municipal public
transit fares on all weekends.
With cooperation between the Tel Aviv University (TAU) Student Union and the
Tel Aviv Trust Fund, students at TAU, Israel’s largest, are privy to a housing
subsidy of up to 9600 shekels per year. The program also drives civic participation, by requiring that all
applicants volunteer at least 40 hours in the local community
in which they live.
Viv
e Co
lom
bia
Jove
n - Y
outh
Car
d
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Affordability is an incredibly important issue: Young people from around the world have told us that it’s their key urban priority. Preliminary results from our survey of 10,000+ global youth show it to be more important than having access to education, having a great film/music culture, and having access to healthcare.
Keeping all the above in mind, we want to answer the following: In which city do all the aspects of affordability from a youth perspective best align? Follow along below and find out.
APP
END
IX
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PARIS
TORONTO
LOS ANGELES
CHICAGO
BERLIN
DALLAS
ROME
NEW YORK CITY
TOKYO
LONDON
SEOUL
BUENOS AIRES
ISTANBUL
CAIRO
JOHANNESBURG
BOGOTA
LIMA
MUMBAI
LAGOS
SAO PAULO
MANILA
SHANGHAI
MEXICO CITY
NAIROBI
KINSHASA
0%
0$0 USD
2%
100$2USD
4%
200$4 USD
6%
300$6 USD
8%
400$8 USD
10%
500$10 USD
12%
600$12 USD
14%
700$14 USD
16%
800$16 USD
18%
900$18 USD
20%
1000$20 USD
FINAL SCOREMINIMUM WAGE
CONSUMPTION TAX
FIN
AL
DAT
A1
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3
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5
6
7
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9
10
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13
14
15
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17
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25
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What issues did we run into: While constructing this and other
YouthfulCities Indexes we’ve run into logistical problems. Some are problems inherent to
comparing the cost of items between cities, others are specific to establishing minimum wage values for all cities. Here we explain
the key hurdles. For more information, contact our Research Director:
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Costs are relative to the local average
income level
The c
ost o
f an e
veryd
ay ite
m like s
ubway
fare
is rel
ative
to th
e loc
al cu
rrenc
y valu
e
Some cities, for example Mumbai, have more
than 1000 different minimum wages
Not all
citie
s hav
e an a
gree
d up
on
minimum
wag
e
For cities without a legislated minimum, we take the base
wage at a typical entry-level job, for example a fast food
restaurant
We take the average amount across all
the given minimum wages in a city
All cost amount were translated from local currencies into U.S. dollars at the average price between January 2012 and January 2013
SOLU
TION
SOLU
TION
SOLU
TION
SOLU
TIO
N
PROBL
EM
PROBL
EMPROBLEM
PROBLEM
Since robust data for average youth income at the city level doesn’t exist, we use minimum wage as our baseline income level
PRO
BLEM
S &
SO
LUTI
ON
S
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YouthfulCities is taking the lead in cities around the world in order to facilitate better cities built by youth. We work with youth, government, industry and communities in order to identify and work towards the needs of youth and the above stakeholders. If you want your city to be involved in our social enterprise, contact us as [email protected]
YouthfulCities401 Richmond St W, Suite 251
Toronto, Ontario
Phone: +1-416-599-5400
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.youthfulcities.com
Join Us
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