I think the census bureau has formal definitions at least here in the states
Apparently most states recognize a place as a city if it just has a few hundred residents/voters. There's plenty of abandoned houses (thus $0 homes) in places that fit these definitions.
[1] https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/reference/GARM/Ch9GARM.pdf
What would be interesting (to me anyway) is a list of some cities who are disproportionately cheap related to their density.