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Cities are just as friendly as towns and villages, nationwide experiment across the UK finds

The willingness of local people to help strangers is largely dictated by the affluence of the area and not the population density, study shows

Cities may have a reputation for being much less friendly than towns and villages – but that’s not true at all, a study finds.

A nationwide experiment in 36 neighbourhoods across the UK found that population size or density had no bearing on whether the locals offered help to a stranger or not.

What did make big difference, however, was the wealth of the area – with richer neighbourhoods much more likely to post a lost letter, return a dropped item or stop to let someone cross the road than one with higher levels of deprivation.

“We were kind of surprised. The common folk wisdom is that cities are unfriendly places, where people don’t help one another out. But our research finds that this is not the case at all,” said Professor Nichola Raihani, of University College London.

Wealth is a key indicator

A public information sign warning of rising Covid-19 cases in London after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a range of new restrictions to combat the the coronavirus outbreak in England. PA Photo. Picture date: Tuesday September 22, 2020. See PA story HEALTH Coronavirus. Photo credit should read: Yui Mok/PA Wire
A public information sign warning of rising Covid-19 cases in London after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a range of new restrictions to combat the the coronavirus outbreak in England in September 2020 (Photo: PA)

Prof Raihani stresses that the ‘willingness to help a stranger’ measure used here is only one way to determine friendliness.

Help may be less forthcoming in deprived areas because there tends to be more evidence of anti-social behaviour in the surroundings, such as litter and graffiti that may make inhabitants feel less inclined to be ‘pro-social’.

And it could also be because these areas typically have less green space, which is known to make people feel better about themselves and perhaps more likely to help others as a result, the study suggests.

People are also less likely to have ‘social trust’ in poorer areas as they are more likely to feel let down by politicians and society, potentially making them less likely to engage with people they don’t know.

Life is harder

And it could also be the case that people in more deprived areas find life harder giving them less time and energy to devote on strangers.

Instead, they are more likely to use that energy forging closer relationships with people around them so they can support each other in difficult times.

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As such, while the study didn’t look at how friendly people within communities were to each other, it’s quite possible that the more deprived an area the friendlier people are to their neighbours, Prof Raihani suggests.

The research found that the experimenter was helped 23 per cent of the time in the Welsh village of Abercynon, compared to 71 per cent of the time in the town of Beeston, near Nottingham University.

Meanwhile, in the affluent Clifton area of Bristol, 63 per cent of the experimenters were helped – compared to 17 per cent in an area of Leeds, also known as Beeston.

The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

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