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Comment by ilovecaching | Hacker News Reader

You're taking this way to literally. Union City isn't a city. It's a small town at best. Redwood City is like a bigger town. Fremont is also town sized. San Carlos is literally a town I've visited in Indiana. None of these places are worthy of being called cities except for Oakland and maybe San Jose.

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This is a truly insane take. San Jose, the 3rd most populous city in California and 10th most populous in the entire United States is _maybe_ a city?

By global standards, yes.

Yes, America sucks at urbanization.

It's a city with a long-dead downtown surrounded by sprawl.

(SJ native here)

Since San Jose is the 10th largest city in the US by population, perhaps you aren't the best gatekeeper when it comes to what constitutes a city, and what does not.

As it turns out there are actually definitions for these things, but it can differ not just by country but also by state within the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town#United_States

CA does not legally acknowledge any distinction between towns and cities. However, many states require a "town" to have fewer than 1,000, 2,000, 6,000, etc., residents (the bound varying by state). Union City has ~75,000 people, which would prevent it from being considered a small town in the majority of states that distinguish rigorously between towns and cities.

Some, like Los Gatos and Woodside, specifically incorporated as "Town of" in their name and public branding.

San Jose is larger than San Francisco.

Fremont's population is over 215,000

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