As you can see, this is not your average American city. For one thing, this is Hong Kong. Minimally, to be the average American city, it has to be in America. 
But Hong Kong can serve as an example of how to best approach the problem of description.
Every city can be described by numbers. There are certain items that could be counted: number of lights shining, height of buildings, number of people living in it, etc. And each of these variables (as opposed to constants) could be used to describe where you live. So, clearly, the first step is to decide what to measure. Are we looking for average population, average rainfall, or average income?
Let’s stick with population for now, and see where it leads. After all, how hard could this be? Let’s just take the population of the US and divide it by the number of cities in the country. That will give us the average city size.
But what exactly is a city? If we count only people who live within the actual boundaries of the city limits, aren’t we underestimating its size? For example, Hong Kong Island has a population around 1.3 million people, but the greater Hong Kong area has a population of nearly 7 million people. In the US, the greater Chicago would be comparable in population, depending on how big you make your “greater area.”
A related issue is that defining a city turns out to be a bit tricky. For example, Maza, North Dakota claims to be a city, and yet boasts a population of five. Another contender, Marineland in Florida, has a population of 7. Just think, if a family of five moves in, they could double your population.
And yet, Framingham, MA, which has a population of about 67,000, claims it is not a city. It says it is the largest town in the US. Apparently, being a city may depend on your type of local government, on if it has formed itself into a corporation, or just how you feel about it.
Calculating something as simple as an average can have its complications. Numbers look so clear cut and stable. But even descriptive statistics depend a lot on our definitions. So when we see a number, we have to remember that assumptions went into it. And those assumptions are critically important. We can’t separate our numbers from our assumptions.
Photo by Andres Garcia on Unsplash
