Posted on 08/10/2013 9:25:33 PM PDT by NotYourAverageDhimmi
Travel mag Conde Nast Traveler asked its readers to name (and shame) the friendliest and unfriendliest cities in the US and across the world. The "unfriendliest" winner in both categories was deemed to be Newark, New Jersey, which one reader say they would not recommend for anything except as "a cheaper/less busy airport to fly into while visiting other cities." Other winners and losers:
-- The next four unfriendliest cities in the US? Oakland, New Haven, Detroit, and Atlantic City, which one voter calls a "pale shadow of Las Vegas."
-- Globally, Islamabad, Pakistan; Luanda, Angola; Kuwait City, Kuwait; Lome, Togo; and Tangier, Morocco, were voted the top unfriendliest non-US cities.
-- On a more positive note, Charleston, South Carolina, was named the friendliest US city, with locals described as "insanely nice." The Top 5 was rounded out by Galena, Illinois; Savannah; Georgia; Asheville, North Carolina; and Austin, Texas.
-- The friendliest city in the world title was won by Florianopolis, Brazil, known as the "Island of Magic." It was followed by Hobart, Australia; Thimpu, Bhutan; Queenstown, New Zealand; and Paro, Bhutan, the latter country's focus on maintaining "gross national happiness" apparently accounting for its two top spots on the friendly list.
I had a fun time reminding Cory Booker about this on twitter. You should too.
does anyone really think the top most unfriendly cities in the world are US cities?
Maybe they could check out the murder capital of the world lately, Caracas. Maybe they should fly on into Pyongyang for a quick trip to the beach.
etc
Las Vegas. Watch your wallets, everyone there wants part of it.
If you wear your FreeRepublic T-shirt, then I promise to be friendly here in Oakland :-)
I'd call it something more like "the wet spot on Las Vegas's mattress."
Uh, they don't have one of these there?
Leftists and s@$t weather?
The weather isn't bad in Oakland, although the ground is sometimes a bit unstable.
However, you were right with the first one. All of the unfriendly cities have been run into the ground by leftists.
So much for progressive utopia.
Charleston nice can have a bit of a dagger to it, depending upon who’s speaking with you. They can bless your heart with the best of them. You’ll eventually be able to pick out the accent. There aren’t many southerners that I’d classify as being arrogant as a group, but Old Charleston blue bloods are at the top of the heap, as well as their Virginia counterparts living around The Fan in Richmond.
Asheville, NC? I don’t know about friendly but there are plenty of weirdos there. The town gives me the creeps for some reason.
Where’s Rio Vista on the lista?
As Woody Allen once said, his definition of God: An omni-present being, inhabiting the entire universe, except certain parts of New Jersey.
Asheville has attracted a bunch of New Age types.
Anyplace run by democrats/heavily populated by Holder’s peeps.
From my experience Camden, New Jersey would be not only the be the unfriendliest. It would also be near the most uninhabitable.
This survey should really be more oriented towards what sections of cities are the most friendly and least friendly. Usually. even the crummiest cities in the US (i.e. Filthydelphia - the area by the Liberty Bell) have nice sections and some that are downright scary (Washingto DC, SE - Anacostia). The only exception to this rule seems to be Newark where I have yet to see a section of that city that is inhabitable.
My wife and I lived in Austin in 1990-91. Most locals were stuck up, arrogant and extremely unfriendly. We had just married and were recent college graduates when we moved there. When my wife went on job interviews the most frequent introductory comment from the interviewer was "So, I see you're a Yankee. Did your husband drug (sic) you down here or did you drug (sic) him?"
We often tried to diffuse the open hostility by jokingly explaining that we were Cheeseheads, not Yankees. Usually, the joke was met with blank stares. If we instead explained that we were from Milwaukee, the most frequent response was, "So, y'all didn't like living in Minnesota?"
If we persisted and attempted to correct their geography, the response ALWAYS was, "Sugar (or Honey or Boy or Son), if it's north of the Red River, it ain't important!"
The only people in Austin who were nice to us were not from Austin. Our neighbors (husband and wife) were from Florida and Sweden, respectively. The four of us spent most weekends together waterskiing on Lake Austin.
One of my co-workers was from Boston. She and her husband stuck out even more than we did - being actual Yankees and such. Another co-worker (and her husband) was from East Texas. They were nice to us. He invited me to play on his work softball team. After going 4 for 5 with a HR in my first game, his entire team was nice to me. But I will say that anyone we met who was orginally from East Texas seemed to be much nicer and more friendly than the locals.
Don't get me wrong, Austin is a beautiful town. The weather is beautiful. The hills are beautiful. But the people were downright ugly. Maybe things have changed in 25 years. Maybe not.
I still have a hard time buying top 5 most friendly.
BTW My brother and his wife just got back from Kohler Wisconsin. They were very favorably impressed. Raved about what a beautiful town it was and liked Chicago too.
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