Salt Lake City is even smaller by that metric, with only 200k people. What gives?
Well, that's why we measure metropolitan areas instead of cities themselves. If your metro area is in the top 100 in the US, then it's bigger than Reno/Sparks by a considerable margin.
Up until 10 years ago, the largest city I had lived in had 50-60k people. It wasn't really worth it to count a metro area: That was the hub for the small towns of the area, and honestly pretty normal where I was in the Midwest. Some had no taxis (and pre-uber) and in others, you couldn't count on a taxi to get you to work on time. Only 1 had busses outside of school busses (but all had school busses).
Now, "big city" is 180-200k. I wouldn't know about where it ranks in the US, as the reason I went to a "big city" was because I moved out of the US.
Of course, perspective. I'm in a "big city" right now, smaller than Reno, and it is the biggest city I've lived in.
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