Q, there's no way the area you're talking about could be called, "urban". It's mostly agricultural fields with some houses located along the canals. This is the area you're talking about.

The Times in your quote described it as "densely populated neighborhoods of the city". This is the city where I live. It has slightly under 80,000 people, and it would be a stretch to try to characterize it as "densely populated", but parts of it could be called, "urban". Notice there are no agricultural fields separating the houses from each other. It's pretty much just houses and businesses with a handful of municipal parks. The area you're talking about is mostly farm fields interspersed with a small number of dwellings.

You can try to torture the language for your own purposes the way you're doing, but personally, I think it's cruel.