I've been pretty lucky. I've never had to live in an ugly place.
It seems so!
Tell me, though, what about London do you find depressing?
Well, it's not a beautiful city. It is alive because a lot of money is running through its streets, and because it's a metropolis, a "world-city" (if you have heard of Braudel), but in the same time it's very shallow, it can be quite disappointing for some.
It's an aggregate of dull, monotonous, unstructured villages; the neverending sprawl of the 19th century that lacks density, dense places, dense buildings, and contrast. There never was any urban planning to give unity or instill a kind of "spirit" to the places.
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London cannot be compared, even for a second, with cities like Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, Lisboa, Sankt-Petersburg, Istanbul, Amsterdam or Roma.
Its urbanism lacks a clear frame, and as a consequence many smaller British cities share a far more interesting "personality" (Liverpool, Newcastle or Glasgow, for instance).