Metropolitanize is a term that refers to the process of transforming a city or town into a metropolitan area. However, there are several synonyms that can be used instead of this term to better describe this process. These synonyms include urbanize, cosmopolitanize, citify, modernize, and develop. Urbanize is a popular synonym that means to develop or transform a rural or suburban area into an urban city. Cosmopolitanize, on the other hand, refers to the process of making a city more sophisticated and worldly, while citify means to make a city more urban or city-like in terms of its amenities and infrastructure. Modernize refers to the process of updating a city's infrastructure, while developing refers to the process of building new infrastructure to support urban growth.