Gran Canaria: EU-Certified Quality of Life
As the residents of Gran Canaria and the millions who visit it well know, the island ranks as one of the territories with the best quality of life in Europe.
The reasoning and the intuition which explain why independent professionals and workers relocate year after year to the Canaries is forcefully and quantitatively backed up in the latest report drawn up by the European Commission’s European Spatial Planning Observation Network (ESPON). ESPON‘s mission is to give advice and reinforcement to the European Union’s policies for cohesion, and it publishes an annual report on the status of the living conditions in Europe. The report analyses up to 50 variables, grouped into three major categories (quality of life enabler indicator; life maintenance indicator; life flourishing indicator), with a level of breakdown in line with the NUTS-3 standard, and including the territories of the European Economic Area (Norway, Switzerland, Iceland). This analytical exercise provides specific data for the island of Gran Canaria.
Among other factors, there is analysis of indicators such as quality of air, water, noise, contamination, access to healthcare, green infrastructures, labour market, natural spaces, governance, social interaction rates, and the like; this allows the identification of the potential of the various European regions, cities and territories, and the economic challenges they are facing.
The result of this study, with 2020 data, places Gran Canaria as the fifth territory at national level in terms of quality of life (with a score of 0.58), practically tied with the fourth (0.59 points). The Canarian territories rank immediately after the NUTS-3 of the Basque Country and well ahead of Spain’s remaining island and coastal destinations. It is quite clear that Gran Canaria places at the topping range, rivalling regions and provinces in Scandinavia, Germany and Switzerland.
In comparison with the highest scoring territory of the ranking (0.69), Gran Canaria outstandingly performs in various aspects: healthcare, environmental health, biodiversity, cultural values and social harmony/sense of social belonging. In the final analysis, this compound score, known as TQoL, reflects the capacity of living beings to survive and flourish in a certain place, thanks to the economic and societal factors and the ecological conditions of the territory.
‘Best in Gran Canaria’ and the SPEGC (link) are working to share information and provide support for all those professional and entrepreneurial projects which decide to grow and consolidate their global impact from a destination which is a unique place to live: Gran Canaria.