T.O. third most polite city in the world: survey

[Jaybird]

T.O. third most polite city in the world: survey
CTV.ca News Staff

Toronto has always had a reputation of being nice, and now a global survey proves it.

A Reader's Digest evaluation testing politeness and courteousness conducted in 35 countries worldwide ranked Toronto as the third most polite.

Hogtown finished behind Zurich, Switzerland, while New York City topped the list of friendliest cities in the world.

Montreal, meanwhile, finished 18 spots behind Toronto at number 21.

The monthly publication tested residents by sending undercover reporters around the world where the magazine is published to test three specific types of politeness. They included:

whether people would hold open a door for them;
whether store clerks thanked them after a sale; and
whether anyone would help if they dropped a folder of papers on a busy street.
New York passed the tests 80 per cent of the time; Zurich scored a 77; and Toronto finished with 70.

Mumbai, India, finished last with a score of 32 upon completion of the 2,160 "real-life" situations.

The region where the least amount of courtesy shown, according to the survey, was Asia, where eight of nine cities finished in the bottom 11.

Test subjects were asked why they acted the way they did after the experiment. Most said they were polite because that was the way they were raised.

Those in New York said their city has become friendlier since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

In Toronto, 11 out of 20 helped when the Reader's Digest reporter dropped his or her paperwork, the lowest score of the three experiments.

However, those who failed the test were in their 60s and older.

"I knew I should have helped, but I'm too old to bend down," explained 79-year-old Sergio Balmant after ignoring a researcher in need.

Other seniors said they didn't want to get involved in someone else's personal documents.

In the overall global survey, those older than 40 fared much worse than their younger counterparts.

In Toronto, women were slightly more courteous than men, and both groups were significantly more polite towards their own sex. Some men said they worried about patronizing modern, independent women.

"I'm originally from Romania," said Valentin Punga, a 30-something Montrealer. "Over there I wouldn't hesitate to help pick up the papers. Here it is different. Once, I tried to help a woman who had dropped something, and she told me she was perfectly capable of doing it herself."

Conversely, men in New York were more willing to help women in the document drops, and all men held open the door for female reporters.

The Toronto reporters -- one of whom was born here -- weren't surprised their city ranked so high.

"I've always found people here to be very polite and courteous," said reporter Ian Harvey, who emigrated from England in 1972. "This is a fast-paced city, we're all busy, but it's the norm for people to take the time to help out."

London and France placed in the middle of the pack with scores of 57, while Milan and Australia finished 24th with scores of 47.

In Europe, Moscow ranked the least polite city.

When a woman failed to hold a door open for one reporter she replied, "I'm not a doorman -- it's not my job to hold open doors. If someone gets hurt, they should be quicker on their feet."

[neilio]

hehe, awsome...I wonder what westerners will have to say to this.

[algonquin]

I'm not suprised at all.

Geez, Jaybird... this flies in the face of your past judgements of TO... I find it interesting that you posted this

[Bertez]

Nice...

[Roch5220]

Geez. If I kept on seeing a person constantly drop their paper, I would kick it away from them.

[Skybean]

I call bull. There's no real test for this type of thing. The tested subjects could have been tourists.

[The Booze Hound]

AMERCIANS ARE NICER THAN CANADIANS!

[Big Apple Boy]

I believe it. Torontonians are incredibly friendly and polite. I have travelled the globe and believe me people are not as polite everywhere.

[The Mad Hatter!!]

I have a hard time believing nyc is #1....

[monkeyronin]

I wouldn't really call this a "study".

[ToRoNto, g-town]

interesting but i dont think they should have counted the 79 yr old man n ppl who arnt physically able. but ye torontos deffinitly polite. and 4 new york i dunno but i've never been so it may be very friendly

[Nouvellecosse]

I wonder how old the test subjects were in the other cities.

[CrazyCanuck]

I wonder how many real life situations they tested. I could believe this but it seems a bit suspect to me.

[LordMandeep]

its impossibile to test this and for people not to be suspect.

Its politer then usual and more then Montreal and Calgary and Ottawa in my experience. Vancouver is tied with Toronto.

[InTheBeach]

This is in a city where eye contact is considered an assault!

I think Toronto is a super friendly place on a neighbourhood level (try striking up a conversation with anyone on a residential street - no problem). But once you leave the hoods...

I guess friendly and polite are two different things. Sure, we are polite. We could be more friendly.

[Waterloo_Guy]

I didn't realise France and Australia were cities.

[pebbz]

I've only been to NYC once and I found it surprisingly really nice. But I was expecting to be mugged the minute i got off the bus so...

Driving around toronto, I can say they are polite, but dont know how to drive lol

[Jaybird]

Originally Posted by algonquin

I'm not suprised at all.

Geez, Jaybird... this flies in the face of your past judgements of TO... I find it interesting that you posted this

It certainly does, I wanted to post this so the Torontonians here have something to feel good about, and to also prove myself WRONG. I hope those bad times I had in TO was just bad luck for me. Though my luck has been getting better the last three times I've been there doing things. Though I still like the hospitality of my other favorite cities!

NYC #1? I think Buffalo, NY should be #1! Detroit should even be ahead of NYC!

[Toronto06]

new york is number 1?

..............................LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

thats either a really bad attempt at trying to make new york look good or a really bogus study....has anybody ever driven a car in new york? you will see how friendly people are once you are doing 1 mile under the speed limit!

[LordMandeep]

New york is a great place but with Montreal are the only places i was ever yelled at by regular people in public.