What a 'city' of 80,000 in western society, and one of the same size in the Afghanistan area are two different things. Pan along the eastern edge of the fields in the Marja area southeast of Nad Ali and there are many buildings and houses visible, paralleling the fields of the western irrigated district, even at the scale of the maps. These run along for several miles. Settlements are very loose with many separated compounds rather than according to the western concept of organized closely packed streets and structures.
The towns of the two irrigated areas, Nad Ali and Lashkar Gah of the eastern one and Marja of the western one, had over 100,000 population in 2005. It seems that the two are lumped together in the news reports.

There is no point in arguing further since there is no possibility of agreement.