What are the most / least friendly towns / cities in the UK? IYO?

[Anon778833]

My town has a reputation for being unfriendly / snooty and I’m interested to see if it pops up here 👀

Personally, I find Cardiff and Birmingham to friendly and upbeat cities.

This! Student in Newcastle about a million years ago and ended up staying in the region and marrying a local bloke. A lot of inverse snobbery including coming from my husband 🙄 They really don't like people who they think have risen above their station! Also agree with the chatty doesn't equal friendliness comment.

So much this.

I've lived in Newcastle for two decades and I'm still seen as an outsider. In my experience Geordies like you if your face fits - my accent was considered 'posh' (it's actually a pretty broad west country accent!) and once I was shouted at by a woman in a bar for sounding like 'Princess Fucking Diana' 🤣

The comments section in the local paper shows exactly what many Geordies think of, variously, students, immigrants, women, anyone local who does well for themselves and therefore have 'forgotten their roots', benefits claimants, etc. We also have lots of shitty far right rallies here - there's always a good sized counter protest, but there should be no need for them in the first place.

The inverse snobbery is everywhere, it's horrible.

Including in my husband's family 🙄

There was a thread on here recently about places that were up themselves and Bath and Guildford were top ranked. I'd concur with Guildford. Interestingly it is twinned with Freiburg in Germany and I found people were up themselves too.

I think people in Liverpool are very friendly but also in Belfast and Scotland generally.

I have always found the natives in Liverpool to be a friendly bunch. If only I could understand the accent, like…

That’s what people do in my town! 🙈

Durham, very friendly. I sneezed in the street and a man walking past said 'bless you'. Also South Wales where I live now. Least friendly, Brighton/Worthing, virtually everywhere in West Sussex.

London is the only place I have ever found people unfriendly.

I now live in Surrey, which a number of people have mentioned as being unfriendly. I haven't found that at all, but when we moved here I had a toddler and was pregnant so it was very easy to get to know people, especially when I was on maternity leave.

I have also never found Bath, Bristol, Devon and Cornwall unfriendly.

That’s true about Newcastle. A lot of my family are from there and I have observed this.

I massively notice the inverse snobbery thing in the West Midlands when we visit family there. You feel as though you're being analysed for ranking.

Nobody quite knows what to do with me as I'm a privately educated single parent who has lived half my life in the north and half in the south. I think I challenge their algorithms

For friendliness, the north west and many pockets of Yorkshire and the south west.

For unfriendliness, Kent. Awful.

I don't go anywhere in Essex anymore under any circumstances. I did try but I can't get on with the place. That's a county rather than a city though. I don't think the people in Essex miss me much. 🙂

When people say London is unfriendly I find they are generally non-Londoners whose experience is of the tourist areas of central London - and therefore the people they’re basing their opinion of are tourists and commuters - ie not Londoners.

I live in a London suburb and have a fantastic local community with neighbours who genuinely care about each other. My neighbours are a combination of working class people born in London and first/second generation immigrants.

As I said upthread this was my experience of London recently. Friendly, helpful, cheery. Lots of people spoke to me . I wasn’t in the tourist areas. The multi ethnicity , amazing melting pot of cultures and interesting shops and cafes was fantastic.

Like other posters, London is not necessarily what you’d think from just visiting.

It’s hands down the friendliest place I’ve ever lived, in terms of our neighbours and community. That’s in two different areas - one during childhood, the other mid 20s.

We’ve since moved around a lot but during the last year I’ve had reasons to go to there again quite often. I didn’t realise how much I’ve missed it.

There's a difference between being a local, an incomer, a tourist or a student. Some places the locals are understandably defensive.
Having said that I agree on Birmingham. We drove up from London, parked, and the first person we met (newspaper stall) struck up a friendly conversation.

Liverpool is the friendliest place I've ever been. Leeds is friendly. I found Norwich to be unfriendly.

@Flowerfairy101 I second Durham. DD was a student there and every sept when I dropped her off I met unfailingly helpful people. You'd have expected the opposite in such a town/gown kind of place. But they are lovely people .