I moved away 6 years ago and have am fairly well travelled.I left Manchester over 40 years ago and haven't missed it one bit. Since my mam died, I've only ever gone back to watch City.
I've lived in (that) London, and lived in/worked for longer than a few weeks, a good number of other cities in UK and Europe over the years. in my humble opinion, Manchester comes very low down on my list of places to live in Europe. All cities/major towns have their problems - the smaller the city, the more concentrated the problems.
Manchester is a small and often dangerous city to live, with more police 'no go areas' in the suburbs than you can shake a stick at. The "amazing restaurants" (compared to London and major European cities they're definitely not amazing) and bars, provide no more than a superficial sheen over an otherwise unexciting city.
Everywhere has drug problems nowadays, but the people of Manchester apparently have to tolerate public displays of wandering spiceheads etc around the city - If that happened in Southern Europe, the people would have insisted something was done about it, and it would be.
Airports, wherever they are located, are no more than travel hubs. They're not a measure of a great city; they're hop-off points for travellers. It's like saying that Luton and Crawley are great places.
For me, the only things positive about Manchester are City, and the fact that it's not as bad as Birmingham or Liverpool.
Irrelevant to all the issues I miss the place like mad and would move back in a
Flash. To be fair everywhere’s a shithole.