I'm going to start off by saying that New York is the best city in the world. Hands down. There's no debate. It's gritty and dirty and unforgiving, but it also might as well be the center of the universe. That being said... there are a few things people lucky enough to call New York home pretty much universally hate about it.

Here are five of those things:

1. Vermin

It’s a concrete jungle. As such, the only wildlife we get to see are rats, cockroaches, bed bugs, and squirrels.

2. It’s losing its soul!

It used to be said that New York is a big city made up of little towns… while that is still true to some extent, gone is the New York City of old- the one that nurtured talents like Bob Dylan and Ella Fitzgerald, the gritty, dirty one that inspired Scorsese and Bret Easton Ellis and the punk rockers.

3. MTA

Just everything about MTA. Enough said.

4. Never a quiet moment in the city that never sleeps.

Don’t you love waking up to the sound of sirens and taxi horns and that one homeless guy who stands on your street corner shouting “Praise be to Jesus!”? Yeah, me neither.

5. The smells…

I won’t go into any more detail about that… You know exactly what I’m talking about.

And yet, there’s just something about it. Maybe it’s the energy, the variety, the excitement. I just know that there are moments, maybe I’m walking down Broadway on some warm spring afternoon and I look up to see the looming shape of the Empire State Building in the distance, and I sigh and smile to myself. In those moments, I thank my lucky stars I ended up in New York, the city of dreams.