allabootmatt
Senior Member
Having lived in London, England and spent a great deal of time in Paris, France, I can assure you that a large percentage of both cities look like crap. The picture postcard scenes are not representative of the whole cities, just small sections of (mainly) central districts. The same applies to many cities in the world.
This is a point worth repeating, though it doesn't excuse Toronto's neglect of its public realm. Vast stretches of London--astonishingly vast, in some cases--are truly awful. That's mostly the fault of the Luftwaffe and subsequent rebuilding, of course.
In Paris, about 12-15 (of 20) arrondissements are postcard-gorgeous, with the rest fairly unattractive. And what's outside the Periph is indeed some of the worst in Europe, with relatively few pleasant islands (Versailles being a huge exception).
Nowhere is perfect. That said, both of those cities--and New York, and San Francisco, and Vancouver, and Montreal, and so on--do a much better job than we do of taking care of what they've got.