[hipster duck]

I'm kind of making a metric out of thin air, but if you wanted a definition of what separates those big 6 cities from the rest, it would be:

- Can a million people or more live a reasonably middle class life in walkable neighborhoods that are all connected to one another by decent public transit? Could these million + people ditch their cars without experiencing a huge drop in quality of life?

I'm not sure DC makes it to the 1 million mark on this metric, but it's probably pretty close. The rest do, yes.

Just by sheer numbers, LA might have 1 million people living in areas that you can walk around - although for many, the walking experience is subpar. But are those places all stitched together by decent public transit? Like, would you travel from Abbot Kinney Blvd in Venice to downtown Pasadena by public transit given other choices the way that traveling from Downtown Berkeley to the Mission seems like a no-brainer with BART?