QUALITY OF LIFE IN SLOVAK CITIES

According to a ranking of regions based on Eurostat data on Purchasing power standards (PPS) per inhabitant in percentage of the EU average is the Bratislava region one of the most developed regions in the EU. The remaining three Slovak regions are placed in the last quarter. However, are the differences between regions really that big? And, is life in the Bratislava region so much better than in the Region of Eastern Slovakia? To capture the true situation, it is necessary to descend to lower level - the level of cities and replace GDP with a composite indicator that considers various aspects affecting the quality of life of individual citizens. The aim of our paper is to assemble a composite index based ranking of the quality of life of Slovak towns and cities. Compilation of the ranking preceded an analysis of already published rankings where we looked for indicators by which the quality of the life in different cities or countries is evaluated. After that, we have chosen indicators that we think are able to capture the studied phenomenon. The values of indicators for all 140 cities and towns in Slovakia, have been transformed via the distace to best method converted to scores and summed for the total score. Weights of indexes is based on an expert survey. The final ranking shows that according to the quality of life score, are in the case of Slovakia the differences between cities and towns not as significant as in the case of regional comparison.