In the "bland" category: Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Charlotte. And lots of smaller places, but I'm harder on the big cities because they're less restricted by size on what they can do.

Atlantic City. Should have benefited a lot more from the development. Trickle-down didn't work.

Phoenix. IMO the worst sprawl city among several (ATL included). If you live in a sprawl city you may spend way too much time/money in traffic, and you can't draw from the resources of the area as a whole because getting out of your enclave and going to another section will seem like a big hassle due to all the potential traffic in between. Many people get the disadvantages of a big area (pollution, higher costs, crowding, taxes) but the advantages of a much smaller one (the suburb they're "traffic-locked" into), and that's backwards from the ideal.

And finally, San Francisco. Undeniably beautiful setting, but prices are sky-high and the people seem to get jaded from all the visitors.