The Most Courteous City in the World – New York?

It’s difficult to believe the results of the following survey from Readers Digest- New York the most polite city in world! Simon World thinks the survey is very much culturally biased.

Or could it have to do with Rudolph Giuliani’s "politeness" by-laws in the which was passed in the 1990s, such as a $50 fine for putting feet on subway seats ( or another example of Malcolm Gladwell's suggestion of the success of broken windows policying)

Let us know your views on the issue;

“We sent out undercover reporters—half of them men, half women—from Reader’s Digest editions in 35 countries to assess the citizens of their biggest cities. (In Canada, we tested the people of our two largest population centres, Toronto and Montreal.) In each location we conducted three tests:

• We walked into public buildings 20 times behind people to see if they would hold the door open for us.
• We bought small items from 20 stores and recorded whether the sales assistants said thank you.
• We dropped a folder full of papers in 20 busy locations to see if anyone would help pick them up.

To allow us to compare cities, we awarded one point for each positive outcome and nothing for a negative one, giving each city a maximum score of 60. We did not attempt a strict scientific survey; it was the world’s biggest real-life test of common courtesy, with more than 2,000 tests of actual behaviour.”