What would really be considered a small city, when is a city considered large 5 million people, 3 million people, or 1 milliion? To a lot of people a metro of 1 million is considered large. In my opinion cities like NYC, CHI, LA, DC, PHI, MIA, SF are HUGE metropolises and most of these cities are parts of coastal mega urban chain. Considering cities like Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, Detroit, Atlanta, Minneapolis and St. Louis are essentially isolated metropolitan areas and remain in the top 20 metro populations, should they be considered large cities? Also I feel it is better to compare cities in the relatively same geographic area, because they are more likely to be similar, large or small.
1 New York–Northern New Jersey–Long Island NY–NJ–PA 18,747,320
2 Los Angeles–Long Beach–Santa Ana CA 12,923,547
3 Chicago–Naperville–Joliet IL–IN–WI 9,443,356
4 Philadelphia–Camden–Wilmington PA–NJ–DE–MD 5,823,233
5 Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington TX 5,819,475
6 Miami–Fort Lauderdale–Miami Beach FL 5,422,200
7 Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown TX 5,280,077
8 Washington–Arlington–Alexandria DC–VA–MD–WV 5,214,666
9 Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Marietta GA 4,917,717
10 Detroit–Warren–Livonia MI 4,488,335
11 Boston–Cambridge–Quincy MA–NH 4,411,835
12 San Francisco–Oakland–Fremont CA 4,152,688
13 Riverside–San Bernardino–Ontario CA 3,909,954
14 Phoenix–Mesa–Scottsdale AZ 3,865,077
15 Seattle–Tacoma–Bellevue WA 3,203,314
16 Minneapolis–St. Paul–Bloomington MN–WI 3,142,779
17 San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos CA 2,933,462
18 St. Louis MO–IL 2,778,518
19 Baltimore–Towson MD 2,655,675
20 Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater FL 2,647,658