At city level the data stratifies clearly. Smaller cities with higher proportions of independent businesses and personal care operators consistently outperform larger conurbations. The clustering is not coincidental — it reflects differences in business mix, average business scale, and the ratio of independent to chain operators.
| City | Service quality | Value | Trust | Satisfaction | Listings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| York | 0.83 | 0.71 | 0.68 | 0.81 | 3,743 |
| Brighton | 0.84 | 0.66 | 0.71 | 0.80 | 5,024 |
| Oxford | 0.84 | 0.65 | 0.70 | 0.80 | 4,313 |
| Bristol | 0.83 | 0.69 | 0.67 | 0.80 | 8,733 |
| Cambridge | 0.82 | 0.65 | 0.69 | 0.80 | 3,033 |
| Leeds | 0.82 | 0.70 | 0.67 | 0.80 | 6,982 |
| Edinburgh | 0.81 | 0.68 | 0.64 | 0.79 | 8,296 |
| Cardiff | 0.82 | 0.70 | 0.66 | 0.79 | 6,432 |
| Nottingham | 0.82 | 0.70 | 0.65 | 0.79 | 8,004 |
| Sheffield | 0.80 | 0.68 | 0.64 | 0.78 | 7,744 |
| Glasgow | 0.80 | 0.68 | 0.63 | 0.78 | 9,393 |
| Liverpool | 0.79 | 0.69 | 0.63 | 0.77 | 7,417 |
| Birmingham | 0.78 | 0.65 | 0.62 | 0.76 | 15,831 |
| Manchester | 0.78 | 0.63 | 0.62 | 0.76 | 9,501 |
York scores 0.81 on overall satisfaction — the highest of any city in the dataset. With 3,743 listings, it has a high density of independent hospitality, personal care, and specialist retail. Business mix is the primary driver of sentiment position at city level.
Both cities score 0.62 on trust and 0.76 on satisfaction — below every other major city. Both have high proportions of essential service categories (retail, food, transport-adjacent businesses) that structurally pull averages down.
City-level sentiment is less a measure of local culture and more a measure of business mix. York outperforms Birmingham not because its businesses try harder — it is because independent operators in hospitality and personal care structurally score higher than essential service chains. For any business, the practical implication is that its city average is a floor to beat, not a ceiling to accept. The data shows clearly that individual businesses in every city in this table are scoring well above their local average. Geography sets the context. Operations determine the outcome.