Philly is the Rudest City in America
Philly is the Rudest City in America. Us? Well, according to us.
Preply did a survey of people living in big cities in America. 1,500 residents living in the 30 biggest metropolitan areas in the United States. They essentially asked city people what the people were like in their city. The survey questions centered around things people do that are rude or inconsiderate to their fellow residents.
The rude actions in question were things like:
- Not letting someone merge into traffic.
- Being noisy in a shared space.
- Being absorbed by your phone.
- Not slowing down for pedestrians.
- Not acknowledging strangers.
- Watching videos in public (volume up).
- Not respecting personal space
- Being rude to service staff (I vehemently disagree with Philly being rude to service staff. Not in my experience, anyway.)
- Using speaker phones in public. *Philly ranked number one for this. (I’ll admit, I’ve done this).
When the nationwide responses were calculated, and all of these rude actions were taken into account: Philadelphia ranked the rudest overall.
The rudest ranked cities (according to their own residents) were:
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Memphis, Tenessee
- New York City, New York (How we could possibly be ranked ruder than New York, I’ll never know.)
See the full list HERE. On the other end of the list were the most polite cities.
The most polite ranked cities (according to their own residents) were:
- Austin, Texas
- San Diego, California
- Fort Worth, Texas
Good for those nerds.
Living in Philly, I don’t disagree that Philadelphians do a lot of this stuff. It’s like pulling teeth trying to get someone to let you merge into traffic. We’re loud, there’s always someone playing their videos on the bus with the volume up, drivers are terrible toward pedestrians, and we’d rather pretend you’re not there than acknowledge you – a stranger – on the street. But not all the time.
Take this survey on New Year’s Day at the Mummer’s Parade. Strangers sharing their backpack beers with one another, and wishing anyone and everyone a “Happy New Years”. Or how about the Super Bowl parade when the entire city became best friends?
Philly is the rudest? Maybe. But we’re nice when it counts. Who really wants a bunch of randos saying hi to you all the time? Keep your head down, and keep walking. Just definitely look both ways before crossing the street. Pedestrians should always have the right of way.
~ Kristen (Facebook – Instagram – Twitter)
