OREANDA-NEWS. According to EuroPulse, the Portuguese city of Porto took first place in the Small Cities Index, which evaluates small towns in terms of the convenience of living in them.

The rating is made by the British magazine Monocle. He assesses cities with a population of up to 250 thousand people from all over the world according to five criteria: transport accessibility of the city (how easy it is to get there, for example, for tourists), management efficiency (how much the mayor's office listens to residents), the friendliness of residents to new neighbors, "green" infrastructure (are there many parks, squares in the city) and opportunities for business development.

Over the year, Portuguese Porto has risen to the first line of the ranking from ninth position. This happened, first of all, thanks to the help of local authorities to entrepreneurs during the period of severe quarantine. For example, the authors of the rankings noted how the city hall and international design communities have supported small firms and individual artisans who produce furniture and accessories.

In addition, Porto is one of the most economically developed regions in the country. At the same time, there is a comfortable, measured life, there is an opportunity to quickly get to the ocean coast or visit neighboring Spain.

In second place on the list this year was the Belgian town of Leuven, in third place - the Japanese town of Itoshima. Among the representatives of the European Union, the Italian Bolzano and Danish Aalborg also entered the top ten. Russian towns were not presented in the competition.