Why are some cities known as friendly places and some not? (neighborhoods, offices)

[Old Tired Man]

All over this board is posting talking about their city as friendly or not so friendly. Certain Cities seem to have lots of posts were people describe the people as GENERALLY UNFRIENDLY. While we can't all agree that certain cities are in fact unfriendly, the mere fact that there is so much discussion about the place being unfriendly means to me that lots of people feel that statement is true.

You see lots of posts about Washington DC, Miami and Boston being full of unfriendly people but rarely do you hear about unfriendly people in a place like Omaha, Tulsa, Columbus, or Boise.

So why are some cities seen as friendly and others not?

[bchris02]

I think the perception of friendliness largely depends on one's own personality. For me, transient cities seem friendlier than ones that are mostly natives, but not everyone sees it that way. Also, just because a city is friendly on the surface level doesn't mean those are the easiest cities to make real friends. You see it a lot in the South, known for its friendliness. It's easy to strike up a conversation but difficult to take that conversation below the surface level.

[marothisu]

It's all what they've personally experienced. I always hear people call people here in Chicago sooo nice, but I never 100% understood that. I mean people can be really nice but there's a ton of jerks out there just like an NYC, honestly. I understand though if you're a tourist, you might not be in certain neighborhoods or establishments all the time to get these types of people.

IMO in pretty much any place there are jerks and nice people. You can find plenty of nice people in NYC even though it has a bad reputation for that. I can show you plenty of jerks in Minnesota, even though people think it's all "Minnesota Nice."

[Old Tired Man]

In my travels in business for over thirty years I visited the offices of a large corporation I worked at in cities all over America. While my conclusions were not scientific, I always was shocked how friendly the people were to each other and me (with exceptions of course) in certain cities, even though the workforce turned over many times, and how unfriendly they were in other cities. I think it is a shared community culture.

While friendly does not mean friends it is still better in my opinion than cold, distant, and nasty.

[garmin239]

I think it has more to do with the way certain people approach others in different cities. I've heard that people in Boston are unfriendly, jerks, etc. I go there for work and do not see this at all. The people in the Boston area were nice and approachable. Just because a stranger on the street doesn't strike up a conversation with you (like in some cities Ive been to) does not make the area unfriendly, just different.