Paris Syndrome
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
And it works in reverse. _Tokyo on Foot_ is a funny book along those lines.
I also remember commiserating about this with friends after arriving to my living quarters in Japan.
Far from my anticipations of tall skyscrapers, huge sidewalks, and cool tech everywhere, it was 1) this looks like the boring Seattle suburb I just came from, 2) that olden-times smell and all the smoke wafting into your apartment is actually burning rice fields, 3) fax us your documents? thx, and 4) btw we need your help cleaning up this one guy's massive VHS porn collection which is incidentally crawling with thousands of gokiburi.
Oh, and maybe related, you also have gokiburi, and bigass centipedes, and you might as well zip yourself into your futon cover if you want some sanity while you work on inspecting your place.
Oh and btw, (random racist comments go here).
So, familiar.
I honestly loved it. Absolutely my favorite city I've ever been to; but it's still a city, with all of the warts that come with that. Still, I can't wait to go back.
If someone doesn't understand Paris or think "it sucks", then perhaps they're either a clueless teenager or an uncool tourist.
And for a tourist all it takes sometimes is a few bad experiences with the locals which was the case of my non french gf when she visited it.
As a french, whose family is still based in the vicinity of Paris, I still don't really get it compared to some other nice european cities that I think are much more attractive/beautiful and better to live in.
I would also say that experience vary differently when you are a tourist (i.e. with a budget and time that allows you to enjoy the good parts) or when you are struggling to make a living in a city and don't really have the money and time to dedicate on the cultural stuff.
Also your perception can change based on becoming indifferrent to things you are used to see. I am living in a touristic city and every day I am kind of amused and puzzled to see tourists taking photos of my street [1]. And then I realized I did the same of similar streets when I was a tourist as well.
[1] buildings aren't especially nices but it is car free, has a number of exotic trees in the middle and residents have unofficially and kind of illegally privaticized the public space by putting plants, palets made fences and garden furniture to delimit space.