Italy's big cities are the worst off in Europe when looked at from an environmental point of view, according to a comprehensive new survey presented on Wednesday.
Laden with smog, short on green areas and often facing sewage treatment problems, Naples and Milan came last and second to last in the first environmental ranking of 26 European cities.
Rome, the third Italian city considered in the survey, came fifth from bottom.
Helsinki was top, followed by Berlin and Barcelona.
The study was carried out by Italy's Environmental Research Institute in conjunction with environmental lobby Legambiente. It used 20 'eco-indicators' such as the number of parks, scale of pollution and provision for cyclists.
"Unfortunately Italy's big cities are the black sheep of Europe," Legambiente Chairman Roberto della Seta commented. "In fact, Milan and Naples are the blackest of the black". The report could find little good to say about Naples. The southern capital suffers from pedestrian areas filled with cars, no provision for cyclists at all, poor public transport and high trash production combined with virtually no recycling, it said.
In addition, it had very few green areas - two square metres of parkland and gardens for every inhabitant, compared to 181 square metres in Gothenberg. Milan performed poorly in the survey partly because of its smog. It has the highest levels of fine particle pollution in Europe and is second only to Paris for ozone in the air. The area of the city which is off limits to cars was shown to be tiny compared to many Scandinavian cities.
Rome also performed badly in the pollution stakes but its score was lifted by a generally sound public transport system and its recent investment in solar energy panels. The report gave cities scores which were expressed as percentages. This percentage indicated the number of times a city was at least on a par with the European average for the various 'eco-indicators'.
Naples scored 21%, Milan 25% and Rome 29%. Helsinki, by contrast, boasted a score of 80%. The Finnish capital city has 2 km of bicycle paths for every inhabitant, excellent water treatment plants, lots of parks and an acceptable level of smog.
In addition, 98% of people have sophisticated home heating systems which enable fuel savings and 50% of all trash is recycled.
