World's 10 most hated cities

They're not the worst cities in the world, they're the best at bugging people. Introducing the places guaranteed to swing your mood southward

By Jordan Rane 

5. Los Angeles, United States

Los Angeles. Or should that be Lots Angry?

To clarify, we’re talking about the one in California. Not Los Angeles, Texas (pop. 20), a little spot near San Antonio that adopted the name in 1923 as an unsuccessful promotional stunt. Nobody you know has anything bad to say about that place.

Not so for this center-less megalopolis sloppily carved into about 90 sub-cities, over 20 ailing freeways, countless area codes and a half-million strip malls with mediocre Thai food. 

How did a semi-arid desert without a decent water supply get so huge -- and so hugely disliked?

Stealing water didn’t help, but that was a long time ago.

“When you get there, there is no there, there,” says one of many underwhelmed L.A. bashers on quora.com, who adds that tourist traps like Hollywood are a total bummer.

So are earthquakes, race riots, traffic pileups, smog reports, constant sirens and the irksome sense that people who live here are okay with all of that because the weather’s nicer than wherever they moved from.

However it happened, “I hate L.A.” has evolved into a kneejerk not just for obvious rivals like San Francisco but virtually every other American city full of folks who may never have actually been to L.A. but can just imagine.

Not even Randy Newman can sing over a PR mudslide like that.

Also on CNNGo: Who are the world's worst tourists?

4. Timbuktu, Mali

Nice weather for camels.

A century ago, the world’s most tenacious travelers may have been awarded a brief thrill upon reaching this legendary trans-Saharan trading center hiding in the middle of nowhere.

But even then, Timbuktu was nearly half-a-millennium past its golden years and largely relying on the travel industry’s most dubious selling point: being so ridiculously remote and unspectacular that even the dictionary references you as “any extremely distant place.”

Today, according to a recent British survey, a third of the public doesn’t believe that Timbuktu actually exists.

Among the remaining two-thirds are those romantic, off-the-beaten-path travelers who’ve fought tooth and claw to get all the way out here only to find a stifling, sand-strewn cluster of shabby buildings staving off desertification.

3. Paris, France

Maybe if I don't look, this "French breakfast" will taste bigger.

Paris inspires a certain love-hate relationship.

Not just for fans of old Renoir or Chevy Chase movies, but for travelers too -- who inspired us to feature this singular place twice. Here and in last week’s column: “World's most loved cities.”

What do people love about Paris? If you don’t already know, click the link to find out.

In the meantime, what do people not love about Paris, aside from the usual rude waiter stereotypes, crazy lines at the Louvre and the city’s knack for rekindling long-kicked smoking habits about 10 minutes after landing?

“I was wondering what was so special about the 'French Breakfast' that I saw advertised everywhere we went,” comments a frequent Paris traveler on VirtualTourist, who sat down and ordered one during his first visit to the city. “For 20 euros you get a croissant, butter, three ounces of hot chocolate, three ounces of orange juice and a small baguette. Are you kidding??”

“Don’t be too easily flattered as you approach the Place du Tertre in Montmartre,” another visitor warns about platoons of starving artists bombarding first-timers to have their portrait done. “I've now lost count of the number of times we've been told that [my husband] has 'interesting hair.’”

“I just read of someone’s four-hour wait to ascend the Eiffel Tower and recalled the coldest I had ever been -- the day I waited atop the platform on the Eiffel Tower, waiting to go to the next level.”

“We made our way to the catacombs hoping to find an extraordinary sight,” says another. “Unfortunately, it was nothing but rooms and rooms and rooms full of bones.”

Every legendary city suffers some degree of overhype. About the food, the views, the charming street scene, the faint possibility of jumping into a car at the stroke of midnight and riding into a more exciting era with Ernest Hemingway & friends, etc.

But the dreamy expectations reserved for Paris -- propagated by generations of writers who haven’t been here in awhile -- are in their own league.

What first-timer here isn’t going to be a little disillusioned after wandering around for hours with checklists, arrondissement maps and dog-poop-soiled shoes without finding a decent place for a quick bite?  

Also on CNNGo: Best and worst things about living abroad

2. Sydney & Melbourne (or Melbourne & Sydney), Australia

Like looking in the mirror and snarling.
Australia’s top two cities would be nowhere near this list if it weren’t for the 177 straight years of utter hatred they’ve reserved for each other.

Since the founding of Melbourne in 1835 (by exactly the kind of pennywise, do-gooder farmboys that Sydney’s felon founders had no patience for), Sydneysiders and Melburnians have been loathingly distinguishing themselves from each other in ways that would make Toronto and Montreal blush. 

Still, they may have overlooked the greatest source of antipathy of all, notes Anthony Sharwood in The Punch.

“Sydney and Melbourne have much, much more in common than either of them ever care to admit.” In fact, “Melbourne is the city in the world most similar to Sydney.”

About 4 million multicultural residents spread across a trendy downtown area with sprawling suburbs, high home prices, a vibrant food and arts scene, Australian TV and radio stations, the occasional bushfire and an intense repugnance for a certain unspeakable place 720 kilometers away.

Which city are we talking about here? Either Melbourne or Sydney, perhaps?

But wait. There is a startling difference. Last year, The Economist ranked Melbourne the “World’s Most Livable City” with 97.5 points. Sydney came in sixth in this same survey with 96.1 points. 

Do the math. These places are like fire and ice.

1. Tijuana, Mexico

Sign reads "No more kidnappings." Need we say more?

Last year, says BajaInsider.com, Tijuana had a lower murder rate and fewer carjackings than Philadelphia in spite of having a police force a third the size -- so why is there a Department of State Travel Warning for TJ and not for Philly?

But never mind all those obvious, glossed-over comparisons between Tijuana and urban Pennsylvania.

The point is that while there are even dicier border towns, cheesier drinking holes, wearier haggling magnets and gloomier border crossings (sorry, folks, drug-screenings take time) than Tijuana, it’s hard to find an undiscriminating tourism hub that’s taken a bigger hit in the public eye lately.

According to a recent Worldfocus report, Tijuana’s annual tourism numbers have plummeted by as much as 90 percent in less than 10 years, and other research estimates that visitor-related revenue has declined by almost as much over a similar period.

Drug cartel violence. The recession. Recent swine flu outbreaks. If any place can rebound from all this, it’s TJ.

But when Southern California marketing firms start shying away from that age-old pitch -- “Come to San Diego and be in a foreign country in 20 minutes” -- that’s when you have to wonder if all those never again regulars kind of mean it this time.