WE HAVE NO wish to belabour the tragic events last October 14 when Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski died after being tasered by RCMP at Vancouver International Airport…

But as we watched the event and the media analysis unfold, we found ourselves constantly wondering if a visitor, clearly disoriented and frustrated, could have spent 10 hours in an Atlantic Canadian airport terminal without someone, anyone, coming to his aid.

The answer is a resounding “absolutely not!”

It’s tough to ride an elevator more than two floors in this neck of the woods without somebody starting up a conversation, usually weather-related. It just somehow feels impolite to spend even a couple of minutes in an enclosed space with another human being without the courtesy of an exchange of pleasantry.

Hell, it happens at street lights and grocery checkouts: somebody will just suddenly open up to anybody willing to listen—and in establishments where a libation or two may have stimulated the friendliness gene—well, is it possible to spend time on George Street in St. John’s without making new friends?

A study published in the New Scientist magazine in 2003 rated Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro as the friendliest of the world’s major cities.

A team of American social psychologists spent six years testing the reactions of locals in 23 large cities around the world to different situations—tests such as dropping pens, feigning blindness or “losing” addressed envelopes.
The psychologists, from California State University, concluded friendliness has more to do with social environment than cultural or ethnic background. The results showed that poorer, less dense cities in developing nations generally had the friendliest, most helpful people. Latin American cities fared well, as did Madrid.

But Kuala Lumpur, New York, Singapore and Amsterdam rated very poorly.

The psychologists concluded their research supported the theory of “stimulus overload,” whereby people in overcrowded, fast-paced cities often fail to react to emergency situations and avoid interaction with strangers (although we know from personal experience that Tokyo would be an exception—and that is cultural).

Apparently, Vancouver also fails miserably.

More recently, the Conference Board of Canada ranked Canada’s 27 cities with a population exceeding 100,000 in terms of their attractiveness to the labour market. Calgary won. Vancouver ranked third overall; Halifax was 7th; St. John’s 16th and Saint John second last.

We are left to conclude (with the apparent exception of Halifax) that friendliness and economic vibrancy are mutually exclusive.

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