I like to think of it like a Yelp review. People tend not to leave a review for an average experience, and usually not even for a great one. But have a negative experience at a restaurant, and you'd better believe that place is getting put on-blast for it. Which makes places look a little negative on-average as a result- people are prone to complaints more than praise in-general.

This is no different. The warts and flaws, everyone goes off about, but the good part sometimes get a little buried.

It has a lot of flaws as a city- housing is expensive, Metro is a disaster, tourist hordes can make it difficult to get around sometimes, etc... it's also got a lot of great things going for it.

Put another way, I moved here in the final days of 2006 and have never left. So it can't be TOO terrible. ;)