Outta my way! America's rudest cities (can you guess without reading?)

MSNBC ^ | 01/20/2012 | Katrina Brown Hunt

[SeekAndFind]

Which is worse when you

[Mmmike]

The more inadequate the transportation infrastructure, the ruder the people.

[Cacique]

Btt

[Tom Bombadil]

Hang around any airport, and you will find that flights to certain destination cities contain a high percentage of easily stressed people.

[Larry Lucido]

You just have to know the rules. :-)

[Graybeard58]

I was in Detroit walking from Greek Town to my Hotel at about midnight and did the ol’ “pretend I’m on my cell phone” trick as I was walking by a panhandler. Agressive would be an understatement. I finally had to tell him to back off and I was on the phone. There was this weird sense of entitlement coming from him.

Detroit? Entitlement? Watch an episode of "Hard Core Pawn" and you'll see entitlement in action in Detroit.

[AndyJackson]

I love New York and New Yorkers. The most straightforward people in the world, actually. Want a rude city. Take Washington DC. They lie and lie and lie, and then they steel their money and lie. For the most part New Yorkers leave you alone, unless you need help, and then they actually held. DC, hah, did I say they just want to take your money and lie. Well that is not true. They also appoint themselves as heads of committees and commissions which they then select with the objective of telling you what to do, and why the money they haven't yet taken needs to be handed over, and why they need a government subsidy in the meantime until they get their hands on your money.

Try being a small government constitutional conservative in DC. Then you will find out what rudeness is.

[Aria]

I was in both those cities in October - during the big snow storm actually - and the only problem was with a Muslim taxi driver who tried to dump us as the wrong address and then became very hostile and told us to get out of his cab when the person next to me didn’t want to pay him for this.

I guess we can thank our politicians, starting with Ted Kennedy, for this disgusting situation.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

My first visit to Chattanooga was my introduction to a more reasonable pace of life. This part of Tennessee is great.

[odds]

I once heard a couple of people who had lived both in NY and California say that if you weren’t exactly welcome, a New Yorker would invite you to lunch, make it short and leave. A Californian would invite you too to lunch but then stay the entire time and just ignore you.

>>”But don’t expect a “HI”, “How are you?” “Can I help you find anything?” at the local grocery store. You’ll be lucky if they even look up or if they count your change back to you rather than just dump it in your hand”<<

That’s how the average Australian does it too in Sydney or Melbourne, unless they know you.

New York, New York... so good they named it 2ice!

[stanne]

It is about survival, as you say, or, at least, efficiency, in NY.

The poll could have stated that it was a contest among very busy cities. Circumstances prevail.

NYers, esp, Manhattanites (those who just work in The City included) are very pedestrian. They will talk to any stranger on line for lunch at the deli or in an elevator provided there is a joke or a pertinent point to be made. Otherwis, ease off, they’re busy.

Grew up driving on the LI Expressway. I defy anyone to prove that my now fellow San Antonio drivers aren’t by far among the rudest, and as such, most dangerous drivers of the two. Much prefer driving in Manhattan than on I35.

[dangus]

I’m not sure about their image having ever been one of propriety. Or is that sarcasm? “Fun” fact: Boston once had a mayor behind bars. Not sentenced to jail while mayor. Actually served as mayor from behind bars. And if memory serves me, he was re-elected. Rumrunner Kennedy... Mumbles Menino... Whitey Bulger... it’s always been dominated by organized crime.

[dangus]

I’m not sure about their image having ever been one of propriety. Or is that sarcasm? “Fun” fact: Boston once had a mayor behind bars. Not sentenced to jail while mayor. Actually served as mayor from behind bars. And if memory serves me, he was re-elected. Rumrunner Kennedy... Mumbles Menino... Whitey Bulger... it’s always been dominated by organized crime.

[AppyPappy]

Filthidelphia = The City of Thuggery Love

[dangus]

Double-checked: Mayor Curley was elected Alderman, thrown in the slammer, elected mayor, thrown in the slammer again, served as governor, created a false identity as a Puerto Rican so he could fraudulently support Roosevelt in the 1932 convention, elected mayor again, convicted again, served as mayor while in the slammer, pardoned by Harry Truman.

[nuconvert]

When I lived in S. Calif, I kept asking myself, “Are these people all on drugs?” They have the slowest cashiers I have ever seen, and they’ll stop checking your order to show someone else their new shoes & then discuss the great sale and price they paid, while you’re just standing there.

Cashiers here are usually quick (unless it’s a man), polite, and you’re always greeted asked “How are you?” “Were you able to find everything you needed?” and at the end of ringing up your groceries “Do you need any stamps or ice?” Your change is always counted. Then you’re asked if you need any help out to your car.

I guess I’m spoiled.

[stanne]

Revisit “My cousin Vinny” wherein Steve Mrtin (Vinny) does an impeccable illustration of a NYer’s reaction to friendly So Cal niceness.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

I remember pausing for a second to find a subway token in Boston, and being shoved by a little old lady, must’ve been 90 years old: “GET THE F*** OUT OF MY WAY, YOU G**-D*MNED DIRTBAG!!!!”

That was my grandmother, and she told me you deserved it.

[stanne]

Steve Martin is in it, too.

[Shery]

My experience, exactly, and I lived there from 1966-1972. ;)

[biggerten]

First night in Boston from the mid-west. Took a walk, got turned around but wasn’t worried. A 30-ish woman walks up “Pahdon me, do you know how to get to.....” where ever, I don’t recall. Anyhow, I replied “I’m from Minnesota, I’m lost myself”. “Ohhh, fahget it”. Polite when she wanted something, rude when I was of no further use. But the hotel staff were all great. Jimmy and Claude at the Colonnade Hotel, I remember you guys taking care of an out of towner, even 20 years later. Jimmy was a small old guy who insisted on carrying my suitcase which had to be heavier than he was, and Claude was the waiter who seemed to work 24 hours a day and knew the best stuff to order.