austin, ft. worth, jacksonville: big boy cities
SF, Boston, AtL, Miami: meh
you have to include all municipalities in a metro area if you want to compare total population sizes. for example it was infurating to me during the coverage of the royals WS parade when i heard someone say "there were over a million people there, which is crazy because only 400,000 people live in kc?!?!?" like the people that live by the airport are relevant here but the people who live in downtown kck are not?
the only time you should compare actual city proper population is if you're trying to compare tax bases or density or something where a person living in the city proper matters, vs living in a "suburb".
almost 5 million people live in the "San Francisco" area, which does not include San Jose, by the way.
salt lake city hosted the god damn olympics.
austin is the capital of god damn Texas. and despite Austin not being a hub of a single US airline, you can fly nonstop to almost anywhere in the US, not to mention frankfurt or heathrow