Emily Chan
In fast-paced environments like busy cities, politeness is often not much of a priority. People can seem more brash when they’re rushing to get to wherever they’re going or if they’ve had a bad day.
Some cities even have their own culture. To natives, certain behaviors might be viewed as normal mannerisms, but to visitors, they may be perceived as rude.
But sometimes people are just plain rude, and it has nothing to do with culture. Have you ever wondered which cities in the United States contain the shortest tempers and the sharpest side-eye stares? Of course, the Big Apple is probably the first location that comes to mind for most people.
New York City has a reputation for being rude, but it’s actually not the most impolite place in the United States, at least not according to a recent survey, which has named Miami, Florida, as the rudest city in 2024.
The study was conducted by a company named Preply, an online language-learning platform. Their rankings were based on a number of factors, including a lack of awareness in public, noise levels in shared spaces, and rudeness to service staff.
Residents were surveyed about social behaviors they have observed in their city. Overall, the most common rude behaviors that Americans exhibited were a lack of self-awareness, talking on speakerphone in a shared space, being loud in shared spaces, lack of care for others, not acknowledging strangers, closed-off body language, impoliteness toward service staff members, and more.
Then, a city rudeness score was calculated based on the residents’ responses. Miami, Florida, was judged to be the most rude. The Magic City was given a 9.88 out of 10 on the rudeness scale.
In second place was Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with a rating of 9.12. The third rudest city was Tampa, Florida, with a score of 8.88. Apparently, the Sunshine State may not be as pleasant as it seems.
Rounding out the top five were Louisville, Kentucky (8.72) and Oakland, California (8.67). The residents of Louisville, Kentucky; Charlotte, North Carolina; Austin, Texas; and Chicago, Illinois, have become ruder since 2022.
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