A territorial category between research and public policy

Achille Warnant, researcher at GIP EPAU and UMR Géographie-cités, explores the notion of the medium-sized city, a widely used but still ambiguous category in urban studies and territorial policies. Winner of the Aydalot Prize 2024 for the best thesis in regional science, he provides a comprehensive reflection on how this concept has been constructed and mobilized.

Drawing on a wide range of studies published over the past decades, this article seeks, through a synthesis*, to clarify the concept of the medium-sized city — a notion whose definition fluctuates across both time and space — by interconnecting three core dimensions: size, function, and representation. Drawing upon a corpus of scientific, institutional, and media sources, the study demonstrates that although this category is long-standing and widely utilized, it remains remarkably fluid. It oscillates between shifting demographic criteria, occasionally contradictory territorial roles, and the celebratory narratives forged since the 1970s.

The analysis highlights the significance of statistical thresholds, the central role attributed to functions such as “relay,” “host,” or “stopover” cities, and the enduring influence of imagery associated with the “human-scale city” or the “city with a high quality of life.” ultimately, the mid-sized city emerges as a hybrid construct—more political than scientific in nature—the use of which requires careful handling to avoid obscuring the diverse social, economic, and territorial realities it encompasses.

Key insights from the article

• The definition of a medium-sized city remains unstable, most often referring to cities between 20,000 and 100,000 inhabitants (sometimes up to 200,000).
• The concept can be approached through three main dimensions: size, functions, and representations.
• Historically rooted in 1970s spatial planning policies, it functions primarily as a category of public action rather than a strictly scientific definition.
• Medium-sized cities are often described as relay cities, receiving cities, or stepping-stone cities within territorial and social dynamics.
• Their public image relies on powerful narratives such as the “human-scale city” or the “city where life is good”, which strongly influence political and media discourses.

Warnant, A. (2026). Définir la ville moyenne Réflexion autour d’une catégorie territoriale à la croisée de la recherche urbaine et de l’action publique. Revue d’Économie Régionale & Urbaine, 261(1), 5-30. https://doi.org/10.3917/reru.261.0005