... "near Cupertino" in population, not geographically. Okay, that makes much more sense.
It's not really a "suburb of Des Moines" - though eventually, as they grow, it may be considered that. It's 30 miles north of Des Moines, through an awful lot of rural Iowa. I'd consider a "suburb" to be "generally built up when traveling between A and B," though there's some flexibility in that definition. But Ames is its own place from Des Moines.
I looked here to find other places I'm familiar with: https://gist.github.com/Miserlou/11500b2345d3fe850c92 and found that Ames is somewhere near Cupertino haha.
I wonder how it compares to other places in the USA in terms of affordability and what the other dimensions of price are in the same price range. (For example Cheyenne WY also similar in population.)
Ames, IA I would say qualifies as n tier in the sense that it seems like it's a suburb of Des Moines? And Des Moines is probably a fourth tier city?