Newark always gets little respect, but a leading travel magazine has given the Garden State metropolis yet another black eye — ranking it as the most unfriendly city in the world.
Incredibly, Newark beat out Islamabad, Pakistan, which grabbed the No. 2 position in a list
compiled by Conde Nast Traveler.
The top five are rounded out by Oakland, Calif.; Luanda, Angola; and Kuwait City, Kuwait.
Next are: Lome, Togo; New Haven, Conn.; Detroit, Mich.; Atlantic City, N.J.; and Tangier, Morocco.
The magazine sniffed that Newark is “best known for being the site of an airport near New York, and for many of our readers, that’s the only reason to stop there.”
And one of several readers who chimed in with negative assessments, said: “[I] would not recommend [Newark] for anything, except a cheaper/less busy airport to fly into while visiting other cities.”
Another complained of the city’s “rude” people.”
Newark’s dubious award comes on top of other bad news for the city.
The annual Uniform Crime Report issued by the New Jersey State Police revealed the total number of
crimes committed in city of 277,000 rose from 12,364 in 2009 to 13,199 in 2010 to 14,512 in 2011 — more than a 17 percent increase in those years.
Conde Nast also ranked the world’s most friendly cities, listing the top ten as: Florianopolis, Brazil; Hobart, Tasmania; Thimpu, Bhutan; Queenstown, New Zealand; Charleston, South Carolina; Paro, Bhutan, and Margaret River, Australia (tie); Mandalay, Burma; Kilkenny, Ireland and Ubud, Bali (tie); and Chiang Mai, Thailand.
The lists were compiled from Conde Nast’s Readers' Choice Survey, in which over 46,000 readers participated.
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