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They're probably referring to the official city limits, which can be tiny, as opposed to the total Dallas metro area. The latter is what people actually tend to think of when mentioning a city.

I might be wrong though as I know nothing about Dallas, in which case it also doesn't fit into my head.

The two runways in my city's fairly small, low traffic airport are roughly 1.7 and 2.42 miles long (2.745 and 3.9 kilometres to be precise).

It doesn't help that the city of San Francisco is quite tiny, only 7 by 7 miles. When you consider that Denver International has to fit six runways as well as its apron, terminals, hangars, various facilities, and the transit space needed to link all these plus an acceptable amount of buffer space for safety and noise reduction...yeah.

Cities are smaller than you think and Airports are larger.

Remember the famous "freeway interchange the size of Florence" image. It takes the small size of "old Florence" and compares it to a modern cloverleaf. Area goes up real fast because it's the square.

Central Park in NY is about seven times the size of Vatican City.