Index: Amsterdam remains the most attractive Dutch city to live in

DutchAmsterdam.nl — Amsterdam remains the most attractive Dutch city to live in, according to research performed for the 2008 issue of the ‘Atlas for Municipalities.’

Each year the Atlas for Municipalities, an independent foundation, ranks the 50 largest municipalities in The Netherlands according to 40 indicators. In 2007 Amsterdam also topped the list.

Indicators used by the Atlas include the availability of jobs, how many cultural activities are on offer, the city’s crime rate, the health of the housing market, how easy it is to reach major nature areas, and the percentage of people with a higher education vs those with lower schooling.

In the overall index for 2008, Amsterdam ranks number one. Utrecht, which like Amsterdam tends to get dwell in the higher regions of the list, is the runner-up, followed by Amstelveen, The Hague and Den Bosch.

If ranked by sociol-economic position, Amstelveen — a city just south of Amsterdam — heads the list. Among other things the social-economic index takes into account the number of citizens receiving social welfare, the number of people unfit for work, the percentage of households with an income lower than 105% of the social mininum, and the percentage of jobs in growing sectors.

This year the Atlas for Municipalities also took a look at how the economic cricis impacted the 50 cities. All of the cities in positions 1 through 10 — led by Eindhoven, Helmond and Venlo — are located in the South of the Netherlands. On that index, Amsterdam is positioned at number 16, one place lower than Amstelveen.

The Atlas further shows that nowhere in Holland rents are as high as in Amsterdam. At the same time, the city has the highest percentage of rent-controlled homes.