My current locale Zurich, it turns out, based on this field experiment. New York City of all places came in first, but I agree. There is so much human capital in the city one is always tempted to speak to strangers, given the reasonably high chance you will hear something magnificent in return. Third and fourth were Toronto and Berlin. In Europe Moscow and Bucharest were the least polite cities. Bombay fared worst of all.
Dear Mr. Cowen,
may I ask why you point your gentle readers to the Washington Times article, which does not mention Zurich’s 2nd place and Berlin’s 4th place either, but expresses it’s schadenfreude about Paris coming in as miserable 19th?
With all due respect for this wonderful blog, I want to recommend these two links instead:
http://www.readersdigest.ca/mag/2006/07/polite.php
http://www.rd.com/content/openContent.do?contentId=27599
From my personal experience, U.S. citizens are among the most polite people of the world and I have not the slightest doubt that NYC’s 1st place is well deserved. But I have my reservations, wether the Washington Times of all media outlets has anything to do with courtesy.
Thank you for your time.
Yours sincerely,
Marian Wirth
pro bono cheerleader for the USA in Germany
This is a culturally biased survey. Different people in different cultures have different ideas of what constitutes politeness in a public setting. I’ve never understood this obsession with holding doors in the English-speaking world, for example. As for the person who has dropped his papers, helping pick up the papers may be seen as an unwelcome intrusion, depending on the circumstances.
Not slamming doors in someone’s face or helping someone who needs assistance is decency, not cultural bias. This might be why I steer clear of Chinatown in Toronto. I also suspect the score would have been substantially different if the reporters had gone there.
People in New York are generally outgoing. However, sometimes
they can be a bit on the verbally rough side. The cursing
cabbie is not a complete myth.
I suspect that Bombay/Mumbai may get its ranking because of
the intensity and aggressiveness of the beggars there, unlike
anything I have seen anywhere .
I heard about this survey on the radio and was at first shocked that NY was first on the list. Then I realized that they were the only US city survyed…
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