The line between small town and city is a blurred continuum, not a threshold

Evidence

But even considered from a historical perspective, from the perspective of a period when human settlements were more clearly separated by time and space, the question is difficult to answer. We are dealing here with a continuum, and while the extremes of a continuum are always clear cut, its middle points are notoriously hazy. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 80