I understand. You hate your city. Living there sucks, and you know that if you move to Desirable City, all of your problems will be solved and your life will be perfect, right?

Top reasons why your city sucks:

There's nothing to do.

This is the leading complaint, generally spoken by young, educated, middle- to upper-class white people who enjoy complaining about their lives. There's nothing to do anywhere unless you actively go out and look. You can sit inside and watch reality shows in any city.

What, exactly, do you want to "do"? If you just want to drink and party at clubs but you're underage, that's not really your city's fault. Moving to Desirable City won't improve that.

Do you have any productive hobbies? Watching TV, talking on the phone, and listening to music don't count. You need something that's active, not passive, and preferably produces a positive result, such as an object, a service, or self-improvement. Try woodworking, drawing, photography, or anything else you think isn't cool because your parents did it.

Need more suggestions? See what nerds do. Nerds are rarely bored because they do what they enjoy, and they don't care if it's cool. That's probably why you think they're nerds. But if they're happy and always occupied, and you're bored out of your mind whenever you're sober, whose situation is more pathetic?

Most people who have "nothing to do" simply don't have any hobbies or aren't looking very hard.

The weather sucks.

This is a valid complaint. I challenge you, however, to find any city with "perfect" weather.

Most cities in most countries are in temperate zones, so you're exposed to a wide variety of temperatures. Sometimes it's too hot. Sometimes it's too cold. Rain falls. Snow falls. Clouds exist.

Of course, there are extremes. Iceland isn't a great place to live if you get depressed from winter weather. And if you live near the southeastern US coast, dangerous hurricanes are certainly a reasonable complaint. But you probably live somewhere with average weather, and Desirable City probably has a similar* rate of "bad" weather.

* Unless you currently live in Buffalo, Erie, or their surrounding areas. These places are nature's testing ground for attempting to break snowfall records each year. If you live there, I apologize for the accusation. Anywhere else is a huge improvement.

The people are all [negative adjective or stereotype].

People in rural areas are stupid rednecks and people in big cities are rich snobs, right? The people in Desirable City are all nice, smart, open-minded individuals who would welcome you with open arms.

Well, maybe not. Desirable City has a bunch of stupid rednecks too. Stupid, shallow, snobby, racist, sexist, liberal, conservative, ignorant, evangelical, cruel, rich, poor, and annoying people are everywhere. You can never escape them.

I just want to live in Desirable City.

You don't even need a reason why your city sucks - you want to live in Desirable City anyway.

Desirable cities are great. I'd love to live in New York, one of the most desirable cities in the world. But everyone else thinks they're great, too, which causes a few problems.

You'll spend a fortune on housing. Whether you rent or buy, you'll spend far more money for a place that's smaller, in worse condition, and in a worse location than you could get in average cities. That's assuming that you can even find a suitable place to live at all.

Salaries tend to be higher in expensive cities, but not always proportionally to the increased cost of living. Since everyone else wants to live there too, there are more people than jobs, and people are willing to accept lower salaries just to stay in the city. The result is that many desirable cities have terrible salary/cost-of-living ratios.

The more you spend on living expenses, the less you save. You might not care now, since if you hate your city so much and want to move to Desirable City, you're probably young. But you'll care when you realize at age 50 that you need to work another 20 years before retiring.

I'm sorry. You're probably angry with me because your city sucks and I just don't understand. Life is hard. But if you work hard enough, someday you'll get to fulfill your dreams and live in Desirable City. It's really too bad your city sucks so much.