Paper Title
Quality of Life and City-Management in The Central European Cities and Tallinn

Abstract
Competitiveness or the development of the standard of living can be examined in the context of not only the countries but the towns as well. There have been several studies in the past few years (e.g. UBS or Mercer) that were looking into the demonstrable quality of life in the major European cities. These revealed that certain cities provide significantly better conditions and circumstances for their population (city-management or local government), whereas other cities are seriously falling behind in index numbers such as, for instance, the development of wages, the prices of products and services, or the number of hours spent with work. The urban living standard highly depends on the national competitiveness, since the position of the national economy has a fundamental impact on the living conditions of the people in the cities. However, this study focuses on the quality of the urban life and endeavours to rank the largest capitals of Central and Eastern Europe – including Budapest – on the basis of some research results. The main question is how much better or worse the life conditions of the people of Budapest are than of the inhabitants of other capitals in Central Eastern Europe, and what the advantages or disadvantages of Budapest are in comparison with cities like Zagreb, Bratislava, Warsaw, Prague or Buhcarest and Tallinn. JEL CODE: J17 - city-management, competitiveness, quality of life in European Cities