Peter Cole writes:

On 10/21/2010 11:03 AM, Radey Shouman wrote:
Peter writes:

On 10/20/2010 2:41 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:

These days, they're more than ever, friendly as those anywhere,
because they're from anywhere. We're not as regional as we used to be,
neither is the rest of the country.

I can't speak for the past, but I do notice regional differences in
how strangers are expected to deal with each other, and I don't believe
it's just population density.

It's hard to make generalities, but the people I knew who relocated
often claimed to find West-coasters "superficial", but that's when
there was far more regionalism. Like your Southern belles, the
friendliness was only skin deep.

I said "polite", not "friendly". Politeness *is* superficial. Many
Bostonians seem to think it insincere, people in other regions think
it indispensable nonetheless.

I think my first interaction with a Bostonian was with a parking lot
attendant. "How are you?" - "Fine, how are you?" - "Like ****!".
That's a conversation that might happen between friends anywhere,
but between strangers I found it quite surprising.

Boston got a really bad national rep over the school busing
turmoil. Neighborhoods in Boston were more clannish than many other
cities. That's one of the reasons for the spate of recent movies, it
makes colorful drama, most of that ethnic clustering is long gone,
despite what Ben Affleck shoots.

I thought it was so locals could groan at the actors' accents.

Yes, but the local accents are also dying out.

Maybe, but they're still very much in evidence. I know people that
claim to be able to identify which town in Eastern Mass someone came
from, by accent. When tested they're often right.

Most of the
neighborhoods in Boston started out as ghettos, even the white ones
(Irish, Italian), they often stayed pretty homogeneous long after
discrimination ended (the white ones). Most of them, including South
Boston, Dorchester, Charlestown and the North End, became finally
mixed once condo-conversion and gentrification started right after the
busing era. You still have Irish parades and Italian parades in the
same neighborhoods, but most of the crowds come in from the 'burbs,
the locals are often yuppies.

I can't speak for Boston proper, I haven't spent enough time there. I
do know people that moved out of my town (Lowell) because they thought
Cambodians and Puerto Ricans were much harder to bear than Greeks and
French Canadians.