Emeryville, California a "small town"? You've got to be kidding me

But there it is in the NPR headline today, "How a Free Bus Shuttle Helped Make a Small Town Take Off." The population of Emeryville is 10,080, but it is in the midst of the huge San Francisco Bay area conurbation.  More precisely, it is in Alameda County, in the East Bay, surrounded by Oakland and Berkeley.  Alameda County's population is 1.5 million, and that of the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont Metro area is 7.15 million.     

Of course, technically, 10,000 people is not rural (by the U.S. Census Bureau definition).  But it's also hard for me to think of this municipality--which is a city with a smallish population-- as a "small town"--at least as that term is used in common parlance--when it's smack dab in the middle of a major metropolitan area.