What you're describing is called "agreement." I'm very plainly arguing that if the distinction between "city" and "suburb" is to mean anything at all, then it can't just be about what's within municipal boundaries and what isn't.
So you were agreeing with OP's comment, not disagreeing?
> Nobody I know would call that street the city. In my mind, "the city" is, minimally, houses that are a few feet apart, small yard in back/front, pretty much nothing on the side. Frequently, it's 2-3 story buildings, with whole floors rented out as an apartment. That's my "least dense" vision of a city. Anything less than that (ie, full yards) falls into my vision of suburb.
That's why people have been using paragraphs to clarify what they mean. Paragraphs that you seem to have ignored in favor of critiquing the utility that specific words have when taken out of the context the author intentionally put them in.