I can't say if it applied when you were growing up or not, but I recall having heard of several studies in the last decade or so that ranked New York City as one of the friendlier big cities in America.
Now, some surveys (as opposed to studies) might give NYC a lot of votes simply because it is a big city that comes easily to mind - so even though they often rank NYC highly I'd tend to discount the surveys. The actual studies were doing things like dropping a pen (when your arms are full) to see if someone would help, dropping a stamped letter to see if someone would mail it, asking for directions to see if people would help or not and so on. Other factors included eye contact, or reactions if you gave someone a smile, or general friendliness/rudeness in stressful situations (tellers in a bank with long limes) and so on.
Big cities are generally considered less friendly than smaller cities or towns, true - but NYC does a lot better than most. The perceived problem is apparently more Hollywood Stereotype than reality.
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NYC actually pretty friendly
Date: 2009-02-08 04:21 am (UTC)Now, some surveys (as opposed to studies) might give NYC a lot of votes simply because it is a big city that comes easily to mind - so even though they often rank NYC highly I'd tend to discount the surveys. The actual studies were doing things like dropping a pen (when your arms are full) to see if someone would help, dropping a stamped letter to see if someone would mail it, asking for directions to see if people would help or not and so on. Other factors included eye contact, or reactions if you gave someone a smile, or general friendliness/rudeness in stressful situations (tellers in a bank with long limes) and so on.
Big cities are generally considered less friendly than smaller cities or towns, true - but NYC does a lot better than most. The perceived problem is apparently more Hollywood Stereotype than reality.