22nd Jun 2006
New York, NY: The World’s Politest City
It’s well known by now that New York City has these days one of the lowest crime rates of any city in Amerika (earlier this year, Malcom Gladwell, whom I briefly met at a party the other day till some nutty Peruvian chick frightened him off, wrote in the New Yorker, “On a list of two hundred and forty cities in the United States with a population of a hundred thousand or more, New York City now ranks two hundred-and-twenty-second in crime, down near the bottom with Fontana, California, and Port St. Lucie, Florida.”)
But how’s this for a new twist: out of 35 large international cities, Reader’s Digest just concluded that New York is the politest. To those of us who live here, it’s no surprise. Anyone who doesn’t hold a door open for you in this town is obviously a tourist. (My beloved Budapest, BTW, is 11th.) San Francisco isn’t on the list, but haven’t lived there for four years, I would be surprised if it would have made the top 25. Don’t let all of those smarmy smiles and “How are you doing?” tripe fool you for a minute: they really couldn’t give a shit.
For tourists and recent California transplants, New York Magazine helpfully just came out with an urban dweller’s etiquitte guide.
No tags for this post
Sitting in Central Park recently, I ended up in a two hour conversation with three people on a bench. In San Francisco, the other people on the bench would pretend you weren’t there.