> While it's not that large of a city compared to others, you can fit the cities of San Francisco (46.7 sq miles), Boston (89.6 sq miles), and Manhattan (22.8 s

> While it's not that large of a city compared to others, you can fit the cities of San Francisco (46.7 sq miles), Boston (89.6 sq miles), and Manhattan (22.8 sq miles) within Detroit city limits. Sure, but Boston is only a part of what people think of as Boston. When Paul Graham talked about Boston in "Cities and Ambition", he meant Cambridge. If you add the cities and towns with a T stop: - Boston (89.6) - Cambridge (7.13) - Somerville (4.2) - Quincy (26.87) - Malden (5.1) - Revere (5.9) - Braintree (14.5) - Brookline (6.8) ...you have a 'city' encompassing 160 sq mi, which is bigger than Detroit. That standard doesn't generalize -- I grew up in the DC area, and the metro there goes all the way out to Rockville, which is generally considered to be an exurb, practically flyover country. (IMO, that's an unfair assessment, but it is what it is.) But it seems about right for Boston. Does Detroit have central parts that aren't part of the city proper, the way Boston has Cambridge and Somerville and San Francisco has Berkeley and Oakland?