I've been to Cairo and Brussels and I agree they are not the prettiest cities. Brussels city centre is nice but the rest is ugly as hell. I saw some tourist leaflet and it pretty much said "We know Brussels is ugly and we are proud of that"
Brisbane looks incredibly beautiful, tho, dunno how it could be No.1.
I can't believe Detroit made the list, its actually one of the more beautiful cities in that list, every major city has its rough parts. But downtown detroit is absolutely gorgeous.