Mid-Point City

I want to introduce a concept I think is more helpful than urbanization as we think about reaching people where we love and work.  It is what I am calling the mid-point city.  Probably some demographer has an official word, and I confess my ignorance and make apologies for not knowing it.  I hope the concept is helpful as we think about reaching people with the gospel.  This is the size of the city in which the individual lives where 50% of the people live in larger cities and 50% in smaller places.

The size of the mid-point city has been the focus of many questions during the seminars I have been present.  Answers were problematic for three reasons:

1. Answer often received was one million.  The real percentage of people living in cities of over one million is 18% worldwide and 8% in the USA.

2.  The second most popular answer was half a million.  The percentages go up, but still fall well under the 50% threshold.  By the way, I don't harbor a smidgen of regret for answers one and two; these were assumptions I had and simply accepted them until I actually thought about the population and city sizes in places I had lived.

3.  The third answer was the right one, not known, and it set me on a search for the answer in a few countries that affect my work.

4.  Common sense, and now some research, seem to show the mid-point city is a lot smaller than anticipated.

Work is still being done in compiling lists of all cities in each country I am interested in.  These have to be checked, verified, and checked again and again.  Sociology students at Ouachita Baptist University and a very generous sociology professor have greatly accelerated the process.  Once I get the spreadsheets done as well as possible, I will send them to team leaders and ask for further refinement.  However, here are the current figures for mid-point cities in Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

• Croatia -6,712

• Czech Republic -12,461

• Hungary -11,171

• Poland -17,924

• Slovakia -12,381

• Slovenia - 2,162

Two of the countries, Poland and Slovakia, need a lot more review.  The numbers are close, but I am not as confident in them as I am the others.  Notice Bosnia is left out.  Not because it is impossible to do, though Bosnian census data is difficult to interpret, but because I am interested in only a part of Bosnia and am not sure how to approach the project.  Actually, I am sure that I simply need to get a map, determine which places are in the area I am interested in, and do it one city at a time  As of yet I been unwilling to pay the price.

Keep in mind that 50% of the population of these counties live in towns and villages smaller than the populations listed.  There are some significant implication for how we reach out to the people we serve, but more of that later.