I visited this little po-dunk town in Kansas once ,it was called Chanute? I believe?
But anyway yeah, they seemed friendly enough… That is as long as you’re white and believe in Jesus.
I’d be really scared to go to this town if I was black. :shuder:
Amen. I’m a transplanted Hoosier, and I hate a lot of East Tennessee. People are extremely rude drivers, the generic subdivisions piss me off, and the government is more corrupt than I thought possible. I pray nightly that God visits some Old-Testament justice down upon the land and cleanse it.
On the plus side, people are fairly friendly once you work with them.
Grew up in the east, spent some time in rural Nebraska, and now live in Michigan. I think I’ve found people to be a bit friendlier in the east. In rural Nebraska, the people were super nice, and very trusting, but echoing what other’s have said, only as long as you looked like them. My brother adopted a Korean child, and there were families that would not let their kids play with her. She was even called “nigger” by a few (I guess she was the darkest thing they had to hate). Of course, this was only by a few people, but they were enough to shatter this friendly midwest stereotype for me.
A side story- On my last business trip to the NYC area, I found myself in some bar in the village. I went to call my wife to let her know where I was (she thought I was in Newark). As I’m talking to her from the payphone, I notice a guy kind of eyeing my drink. Finally he reaches over and grabs my drink. Then, he turns around and brings it over to me whispering “you looked like you might be a while, I didn’t want your beer to get warm.”
Just another rude New Yorker!
SHAKES, I’m originally from Parsons, not too far from Chanute. Chanute’s not great, but no way would I want to be a person of color living in Altamont (another nearby podunk town).
Actually, if I were black, I’d be tempted to move somewhere besides Missouri or Kansas–or any of the central US, prob’ly. 
One thing I’ve noticed about living in the supposed “friendly” belt is that though we don’t generally go out of our way to make small talk with strangers, if someone starts it up, we’ll happily chat along. We’re friendly; we just don’t have much initiative.
The famous Minnesota Nice. Well, some folks call it Minnesota Ice. Outwardly friendly, not deep down. At least that’s the claim. I personally think that most folks around here are decent. Sure, there’s a share of jerks, but I think the decent people outnumber them. Of the Twin Cities, Saint Paul is the freindlier. I have many friends in Minneapolis that don’t know their neighbors. I live in Saint Paul, and know my neighbors, I even use one neighbors cabin on a regular basis.
I think anywhere in the US the service sector died in the boom of the nineties. Any decent, halfway intelligent, service minded folks got better jobs, leaving the clueless, rude, and incompetant to take their places. The best convenience stores around here are owned and operated by recent immigrants.
No No No you have it all wrong. People from the SOUTH are the friendliest!
But, you know, there are a great many parts to the Mid-West. It stretches, according to different people, from Ohio to Nebraska.
Personally, I distinguish between the Midwest (taking the original use of the term) which is Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and eastern Missouri. And maybe Michigan so they don’t feel left out, and other parts.
The “other” Mid West, I feel, is from Missouri until you get to the far West. Maybe we should call this the Mississipi West.
So, for parts of the lower 48:
Northeast
Old South
Deep South
Mid West
Mississipian West
Southwest
Pacific Northwest
Shoshana, feeling a compelling need to help make up for this horrid transgression that has occurred to you during your midwestern stay, I humbly offer to take all your money and your credit cards as well.
No need to thank me, it’s the least I can do. 
I don’t know about the midwest, but from what I’ve seen of the South, I have to agree with the South = friendly people here. I grew up in western Massachusetts and people there are generally pretty stand-offish and aloof. When I lived near Ft. Lauderdale in Florida I was amazed at how much friendlier people were down there, and even that was with a significant percentage of the population being northerners (New Yorkers in particular). I think the weather tended to thaw people’s personalities a bit. But nothing compared to what I witnessed in Savannah, GA. Everyone I ran into there was friendly and helpful (and nobody was in a hurry to do anything, but that’s another story). It would appear that Southern hospitality is not dead.
Now I live in Hernando County, FL (north of Tampa) and it’s much more “southern” here than it was near Ft. Lauderdale. It’s not quite as laid back and friendly as Savannah appeared to be, but so far my experience has been that the people who grew up around here tend to be the same sort of friendly Southern types I saw in Savannah. And, really, thank the diety of your choice for that.
I’ll second Isabelle in her nomination of the SOUTH.
Need I remind the OP that ‘Mayberry’ was set in and based on a actual small town in NC? (I’ve forgotten the name. Near Mount Airy, I think?)
The stereotype I’ve always heard, and which I give some credence to, is that people in the South are the friendliest. If you want random friendly conversations with strangers, c’mon down he’ah.
My sister and her family lived in Chanute for 10 years. According to my brother in law, town like that always had one or two black families (they came in to build the railroad or whatever, and stayed) and everyone got along just fine.
The trick is simply to stay there for four or five generations until everyone is used to you.
Come to think of it, that’s about the same advice I’ve give to a white person thinking about moving there.
I’ve lived in the Midwest all my life and I think it’s a myth. You’ll find every flavor of person in the midwest as you do anywhere else. City-dwellers tend to be more diverse no matter where you are in the country, and rural folks tend to skew towards ancestors of original settlers from one or several other countries.
On a side note, in my travels from flyover-land, I actually found New Yorkers to be more friendly than they’re made out to be and San Fransiscans to be pretty snobbish, considering how “accepting they are of all different types of people.” That’s just one person’s experience with a way-too-small-sampling-size-for proper-evaluation, though.
I lived in Massachusetts for 79years, Arvida Quebec for 10 years and Montreal for 3 years.
I’ve had more strangers help me-out of tight spots (towed cars in Chicago etc…) various situations- in the one year that I’ve lived in Illinois than in all the time in any of the previous places.
I’m not sure if I’ll stay once law school is done but I think it’s really friendly here + cost of living seems low after suburban MA.
NINE years in MA. I initially put in 7 but then realised that I had to add the two years after college.
Not too long ago I read a column in Southern Living, I think it was. A transplanted Southerner was in the North, distraught because her father had died and she had to get some food together for people coming over after the funeral. She stood in the grocery and commenced to having a breakdown over whether to buy chicken breasts or legs.
“Which do you think?” she tearfully asked a clerk. “It’s my daddy’s funeral.”
I forget what she said, but something to the effect of, “whichever’s cheaper.” The author went on to say that this scenerio just wouldn’t happen in the South. Mostly likely the lady would come right around the counter, take you up in a hug, tell you to hush and forget about cooking, just head on over to KFC and don’t worry about a thing.
I found myself recalling this column not long ago when standing in Target by myself, trying to decide what color bathroom rugs to buy. I was in a fragile mood (for reasons I won’t go into) and was getting a bit upset. I was musing aloud as I tried to match the color from a wallpaper sample in my hand, and quite naturally started discussing it with a woman standing next to me. You wouldn’t believe the look she gave me, as if I’d dare chat up a perfect stranger in the middle of Target. Parenthetically, I’d add her, “I’m not sure,” was delivered in Yankee tones.
So, I’m a Southern chauvinist. I think the people here are more genuinely warm and nice, more likely to mean it when they ask, “how are you, hon?” than anywhere else. But I’ve met friendly people all over the country. My personal feeling is that if you’re nice and friendly to folks, they’re most likely to be friendly right back.
My trip to Chicago was marvelous, and the people I was introduced to – namely friends of my host family – were all extremely friendly and cordial. Since the host family were Jehovah’s Witnesses, they would leave early in the morning to go to meeting or go preaching; as I wasn’t a JW, I’d bike-ride a few blocks to the local library and browse for a couple of hours.
Let me say that the only truly RUDE people I ever met in Chicago were the librarians! These people were horrible. I’d ask a question and they’d reply in this incredibly snide, condescending tone. You could almost hear them think Oh, isn’t this nice, the little hick redneck wants to read a book! Do you want one with lots of pictures, white trash girl?. Even my cousin noticed this and was terribly embarrassed and apologized for how the librarians acted. The only polite one was an Arab man who nicely helped me when I became confused about which bin to drop my book into.
It’s a myth. People out east and in the Midwest seem to have different definitions of “friendly,” that’s all.
In my life, I’ve lived in the suburbs of NYC, in Des Moines, Iowa, in Boston, Mass, and Minneapolis, MN. And I can easily say that it breaks down for me like this:
East Coast: while people don’t smile or wave at strangers on the street, and often seem to be in too big of a hurry to stop and give directions, they’re very good at making chit-chat in social situations and mixing with people they don’t know well. People moving there may have a hard time with the commutes and the busy-busy pace of life, but social circles are generally more open to new people than in the Midwest.
Midwest: a lot of the “friendliness” is surface friendliness: smiles, polite thank yous, and waving. However, when you try to get to know a Midwesterner well, you find out that they’re not very adept in social situations with people they don’t know well and tend to have a very closed social circle. Friends are primarily made in youth, at college, through family members, or at church. It’s very hard to move to the Midwest and make friends.
Boston: All Bostonians are rude jerks, and they hate everyone.
Okay, the above are gross stereotypes, it’s true. There are social idiots living on the east coast, and Midwesterners who welcome new people. And there’s probably a nice Bostonian or two. But, in general, this sums up my experiences.
I think Jones might have it. (Except maybe about Bostonians. I’ve only been to Boston once, so I don’t know. 
)
I expect people to smile and be friendly in public. I don’t know that I would characterize this as “surface friendliness.” That’s just what I consider to be polite. Friendly smiles are a nice touch, but please and thank you are absolutely necessary. (You’d think there was a nine-cent tax every time you said please or thank you, as stingy as people are with them in New York.)
However, I’d be totally freaked out if my new neighbors who I hardly knew were inviting me over to use their trampoline whether they were home or not, and I would have no idea how to reciprocate their, uh, kindness.
Then again, I’m more than a touch asocial, even for a Midwesterner, but in general we prefer to tend to our own knitting.
Hey! I used to live in Parsons years ago. When I was a wee one. And I went to school in Oswego. Also when I was a wee one.
I was just weeing all the time back then, wasn’t I?
Anyhow, I don’t understand the references to Kansas City being an unpleasant place for people of any color. I mean, sure, you have your racial tensions every now and then, but those are isolated incidents, not indicative of the city and its metro areas as a whole. But you also get that is pretty much any city.
Are the people friendlier here than elsewhere? I dunno, but I doubt it. I think that, in any state (or in any country for that matter), you’re going to come across enough people–good and bad–to even it all out.
Maybe the more rural you go in either Kansas or Missouri the racism develops more and more, but I just don’t see it in Kansas City. Does anyone have specific examples which say otherwise?
Thanks, but AOL and the guv’ment beat you to it!