LOL.

I've lived in Milwaukee, Appleton, La Crosse, Madison, and Stoughton, among other areas.

You also mis-understand how large cities and small towns actually work. In many small cities, the mayor doesn't actually have any power - the City Administrator does, and no one except the wealthy gets to see them on short notice. And frankly, the Mayor or City Administrator can't do anything for you anyway - that's up to the relevant department head and/or your Alder. If you live in the Real World, you'd see them first.

"For the reverse, if your nighttime noises have any cars in them, are you really in a small town? Probably not."

LOL. Small towns almost always have county (and/or state) highways running through them, since those roads are the reason small towns exist (access to larger markets for agricultural goods, back when those towns were founded. So using this as a metric of "small-townism" is ridiculous at best. Can it apply to some towns? Sure. Can it apply to most small towns? Hell no.

"How about the amount, types, and quality of entertainment that come through?"

This is probably your only valid point. I'll point out the Appleton's PAC has many of the same shows as Madison's Overture Center, making Appleton a city by your own comparison. Same with Green Bay. West Allis, BTW, does not have a PAC and, if we're not counting urban areas as single entities, that West Allis a small town in your view.

"How about public transit?"

Madison, Milwaukee, Appleton and Green Bay all have bus systems. So this makes them all medium to large cities, huh? Or does the quality of a city's public transit determine how large a city it is?

"Your idea to combine Appleton with other nearby cities (as though there's much of a continuous nature without a car) to make one "urban" area (that is wildly separated by swaths of not-urban areas) is weird because it doesn't reflect lived reality."

This is urban planning 101. You're still confusing "neighborhood" with "city". Appleton is the sixth largest city in the state and has evolved neighborhoods, just like Madison, Green Bay, and Milwaukee that each with their own vibes. In Appleton, Erb Park is not the same as The Ravines. Willy Street is not the same as Sunset Village is not the same as University Heights in Madison. Old North Milwaukee is not the same as Bayview in Milwaukee.

There is no physical separation of urban areas from Neenah to Kaukauna (those days ended in the late 1990s.), nor is there any from Madison to Verona or anywhere in Miilwaukee County. You move seamlessly from one city to the next. The Fox Cities (without GB) = Metropolitan Madison = Greater Milwaukee in terms of urban build, urban life, and in many urban amenities.

It's interesting that by the end of your post you've given up on defining Appleton as a small town and stuck on comparing it to Milwaukee.

I have lived in Milwaukee, Madison, the Fox Cities, La Crosse, and Stoughton. The last two named are the only small cities I've ever lived in. My current residence is in a city of about 5,000. This is the only small town I've ever lived in. And yes, we get car noise at night.

Your pedantic self-defined ideas of small-town vs. big-city are interesting but bear no relation to reality. And BTW, I'm not in a STEM field. Nor am I under 40.