Having visited New York a lot I gotta agree that there is something about it that makes people rude. Everytime I've been there for more than a week I just start feeling rude. Hong Kong is pretty rude also in terms of pushy and unhelpful people. Guangzhou and Shenzhen in the PRC were the same way too. I didn't think Boston was too rude and I think the New England accent just gives an impression of rudeness. While I was living there one time I stopped to give a middle aged woman a jump start and after I got her car started she asked me where I was from and I said Texas, she said she knew I wasn't from Boston since most Bostonians wouldn't have bothered to help. The nicest city I've been to was Kuala Lumpar with the exception that they hated Americans when I was there they seemed to be genuinely friendly. IMO some of the nicest, friendlies people I've met have been Malays, Indonesians and Thais.
