Conde-Nast Dopes Malign Our City

I do think we have a lot more rude and hostile people than a lot of other places in the country. It's particularly visible in the way people drive (everyone runs red lights here, for example).

It sounds like it was simply a reader survey, and the results were probably just based on New Haven's lack of a status as a tourist destination. No need to get all up in arms -- it's not as if anybody actually reads Conde-Nast Traveler. Before now, had anybody even heard of it?

This magazine should be renamed, Nasty Traveler.

I have to agree with Conde-Nast, New Haveners aren't very friendly, especially the folks who ride the city buses. In fact, I think it is true for most Connecticuters, the state is an unfriendly one. I am a Connecticut native and I notice it, we are quite closed off and short with people.

Why is Conde-Nast to blame? Because they published poll results? Should everything negative about New Haven be censored? A better poll would have been Do You Agree,Slightly Agree or Not At All.

Whoever "Staff" is, he or she has written a most unfrendly article.

I believe Conde-Nast Traveler was quoting their sole reader. Let's not expand their readership by requoting in a forum with far more sophisticated and numerous observers!

When Galena, IL, population 3435 (not a "city" by anyone's standards) ranks #2 as friendliest, you know some sort of shenanigans (read: poll spamming) was going on. Not worth paying the slightest bit of attention to. (Though I have been to #1 Charleston, and they ARE incredibly friendly there--so long as you don't praise President Obama or take the Lord's name in vain, that is.)

Wait? That was sarcasm right? Yale? Warm and fuzzy?

I've lived in and around New Haven for over 40 years and it has gotten much worse as Yale has walled itself from the community citing crime as its reason and embarked on a campaign of "revitalization" and in the process destroying everything interesting and friendly.

I remember fondly the 80s and early 90s when New Haven had style and diversity, when Broadway was the hub of small funky businesses and many a town/gown lasting friendship was formed. Prior to Chapel/Broadway being re-dubbed "at Yale" there was a real feeling of acceptance between the punks that used to hang out down by the Tune Inn and the Hip Hop kids who trolled the mall, and no one felt like they were being eyed suspiciously as they mixed with the Yalies.

New Haven has become more unfriendly with every attempt at making it palatable to suburbanites and visiting parents. As they are given even more privileged status in "shaping" New Haven, Yale and its students, faculty and staff have gotten more and more rude, and unfortunately so have the rest of us.

Wait, has anyone told Toni Harp yet? I would love to hear how she plans to make us a friendlier city.

So is it us or the Yalies who are the unfriendly ones. Or both? I mean, anyone coming to New Haven to visit really isn't going to leave the downtown core(and there's probably a good chance they're there for something Yale related to begin with), so their interactions are going to have a huge ratio of Yale students in it.

I actually agree that New Haven is not very friendly. Here's an experiment: Just try saying hello to a stranger on the street. You're likely to get no response, the stranger clutching their bag a little tighter, moving toward the edge of the sidewalk, trying not to make eye contact. That's not a friendly response. I don't know what other cities are like, but New Haven definitely has a case of the fear. People need to smile more and stop reading these bloody polls!

I love New Haven...but as someone who's been cussed out by a grown woman for having the AUDACITY to walk by her on the sidewalk...I'd have to agree people here are dang unfriendly.

My impression is just the opposite of the Conde Nast report.
It's impossible to walk down Chapel St without some one blessing me or commenting on something in a positive way. But then I live here and maybe visitors have a different experience?
We New Englanders are a bit reserved, but the transplanted Southerners among us balance that.
Carry on.

These survey results are primarily based on the impression of travelers so the indictment may lay within the responsibility of the "hospitality" industry.

Are the staff at local hotels and restaurants rude or giving bad service to customers that are paying some pretty substantial rates to be in New Haven?

I've traveled the country for business and also tried to bring events to New Haven. I can personally say I would take my clients to at least 50 other cities than here based on they way I was treated.

This could only be a surprise to those of us who have not spent much time elsewhere. New Haven is indeed a rude city. The actions, mannerisms and speech of many of our residents is highly negative and pathologically self centered.

Driving behavior is just one example: New Haven is home to the worst drivers in the nation and perhaps in the world. Nowhere else in the United States are drivers in such a hurry to get nowhere. Stoplights are routinely ignored, stop signs appear to be nonexistent and left turns on red are as commonplace as right turns on red. If you are not moving within 3 milliseconds of a red light turned green, expect loud honks and expletives from behind you almost every time. And just try driving anywhere in New Haven at the posted speed limit. Go ahead...I dare you!

They're right. New Haven is terribly unfriendly. Forget about a smile, nevermind a hello passing someone on the sidewalk.

As a lifetime resident of the City of New Haven covering many decades I have found the city and residents to be very friendly. Once in a while someone may not be having a good day and their mood will reflect a negative or no response to a greeting. The neighborhood store is one place where you can judge the friendliness of the community. Not everyone walks around with a positive and friendly attitude but that doesn't overrule the majority.

Esteban: clearly you have not spent any time in Stamford where the rules of the road are improvised on a daily basis.

I find people friendlier in New Haven than in other CT cities like Norwalk and Stamford.

This is a BS "poll." How do travelers passing through a city judge it's "friendliness?" Probably by the actions of the folks they tend to encounter—underpaid waiters and waitresses, overworked hotel personnel, surly cops issuing parking tickets when there's real crime in the neighborhoods that needs to be addressed, traffic jams near the Yale Bowl and other inconveniences.

Try as we (and Yale) might, New Haven is not really a tourist destination, like Mystic Seaport or Foxwoods, and it lacks the requisite servility that a lot of people expect from the likes of the Disney World smiley pod people.

I think that's a good thing. Aside from Yale's muscular efforts to suburban mall-ify the commercial area near it, the rest of New Haven has a great sense of community—by ethnicity, by church/synagogue, by neighborhood. But you'd have to live here to know that.

There may be another dynamic at work in Conde-Nast's assessment of New Haven as "unfriendly:" namely, class. Our visitors are, I suspect, mostly Yale-associated: parents of students who don't need scholarships, Old Blue alums at the reunions and football games, businesspeople and entrepreneurs visiting start-ups and the School of Management. We are host (if you can call it that. Maybe "serfs?") to one of the most elite colleges, universities, law, business and medical schools in the country. By it's very success, Yale creates a class tension by its location in a historically working-class town.

Yale has never gotten along well with this New Haven, and especially those parts of the working class who are having increasing difficulty finding jobs (except for those who manage to get jobs at Yale—NH's largest employer). From their desire to build a ring road around the campus to shield them from the neighborhoods (in the 60s) to their present-day retail boutique-ing of the Chapel St. area, the university has never seen it's own interests as consistent with the well-being of our city.

I hope that will change with the new president, but I'm not optimistic.

I'm guessing the cross sectional survey they took used a relatively small number of participants.

Having said that, in the 5 years I went to school here in addition to the 4 years I've been living here, I've seen the rudeness. So many times I've looked at people, smiled, said "hello," and they reciprocate by staring at in me in disgust, like I have 9 heads.

I think so many people here, for whatever reason, have their guard up all the time.

Nashstreeter:

I wouldn't confuse "servility" with "manners." And the "historically working-class town" was of fairly-recent origin as New Haven declined after WWII with the flight of most everybody but the "working class." Before that, New Haven was a thriving, innovative small city with a large retail and entertainment sector along with a strong business community. And before industrialization, New Haven was a much smaller but quite Genteel New England city.

I'm with Nashstreeter.

If I am wearing casual clothes, a lot of Townies will say hello back to me.

If I'm in a jacket and tie, more Yalies and less Townies will say hello. Same goes for wearing my Yale ID badge.

If someone doesn't say "hello" back to you, don't take offense and shut down. Maybe that person had a bad day; maybe they just lost their job, or someone close to them died. JUst say hello to the next person, and the next, and the next. It costs very little and gives back very much.

If this poll is meant as a joke, well than I apologize for not getting it.

I don't know if folks in New Haven are rude, some are I'm sure, some aren't.

That is a relative term and if that represents an experience of the writer, they are entitled to say so.

Calling for a boycott of a media because a writer said the folks in your town are rude, sorry suggesting a boycott this is s lot more serious of a problem than a writer calling people in New Haven rude.

Is it the view of the Independent or some readers that when we don't like a comment in a media we should then organize to harm that media.

Are you sure that is a good policy that would meet your ends?

What about when it works against media with comments you support?

For ten years the Tribune company ran ads for prostitution and failed to have policies in place to prevent human trafficking.

So called progressives in New Haven were fine with that!

No call for boycotts or even criticism even after law enforcement and women's groups asked the Courant to halt the advertising.

But being called rude that elicits a suggestion for a boycott?

Please get a grip on yourselves and remove this "poll", which is harmful to all media, including yours.

There are activities that a media might be responsible for that should cause readers and advertisers not to support that media.

A policy of deception or the promotion of detrimental or illegal practices in the community - maybe in a bad case - but a writer calling people rude.

What has gotten hold of you?

Again , if this is meant as a joke, well than I apologize for not getting it.


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If rude bothers you you as description of New Haven you're not going to be very happy when you read this article written about New Haven just recently, in Indianapolis.

http://www.ibj.com/hetrick-its-time-to-put-money-behind-our-crime-prevention-push/PARAMS/article/42528

First, New Haven is consistently in the top 20 most dangerous cities in the country. Second, most people who travel to the city are transients who live in New Haven between 6 months and 8 years because of Yale. Thus, they have enough time to traverse the city and judge correctly. Third, New Haven is expensive with so little to offer, except for cuisine. Everyone knows the best thing about New Haven is New York. So give it a rest, New Haven is on its way down the tubes, shrinking and sinking in status, a rust belt of sorts soon to be like springfield. Anyone who has lived in New Haven for a prolonged period knows that the only reason it exists is because of the social elite whom pay for their children to attend Yale, which I might add is losing esteemed faculty because of the aforementioned reasons. I spent 7 years as a scientist in New Haven, and moved three months ago. I can already feel the negativity and pollution from the 91/95 be released and renewed with every breath I take. Having lived in 7 cities since leaving home, I can truly say that New Haven is the first I'll never return to and visit:)
---and the rest is history!

Are you guys seriously calling for a boycott because Conde-Nast printed an opinion of New Haven that differs from your own?

[Editor's note: We're not seriously calling for a boycott.]

In a bit of good news New Haven, CT is only number 7 on the Worldwide list.

http://www.news.com.au/travel/holiday-ideas/the-world8217s-friendliest-8212-and-unfriendliest-8212-cities-named/story-e6frfqd9-1226691364948