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I think as Graham stated, the term "nice" is really the wrong word for what Jay is trying to say. Nevertheless I do see his point.
People in Toronto have their guards up at all times. I do too. It's like this in many places all over Ontario, Kingston and Ottawa too. I haven't really been overseas, except for Israel which would be like comparing apples and oranges here, but I have been to a few small towns and noticed the difference even there. I spent a large part of one summer in Wolfville, Nova Scotia and it was almost like a different world.
Nobody was ever in much of a hurry. You always saw people chatting outside, on the street. Strangers always said hello to me and to each other. I saw drivers stopping for pedestrians who were clearly jaywalking, without any honking or indication of road rage. I remember going out with two friends I made that summer and getting two police officers to take a picture of me getting "arrested" (you try doing that with the Toronto police). All in all, it just seemed like a completely different way of life.
Personally, I think that the more a community expands, the less we see of this. It's not necessarily about the state of the economy, or about the geographic location - it's just that when an area is saturated with people (like Toronto), the feel of community is lost, and modern communications technology allows many less densely populated places to succumb to this same fate.
It may sound contradictory, but from my experience, larger crowds (real or perceived) tend to make people more self-conscious and self-centered. I can even relate to this on a personal level just from my university classes - the ones with 10 or 20 people, there was a lot of socializing between everyone; the ones with 100 or 200 people, there were many isolated cliques and isolated individuals but no real "vibe" to it.
Why do you think people are more friendly at System and at Boa than they are at the Guvernment? Okay, it's true that they cater to different crowds, but it's not just the crowd itself, it's also the size of it. When you're amid a sea of unfamiliar faces you just get a little scared and thus introverted. That's what people in a city like Toronto deal with on a daily basis, so it's easy to understand why they're always on edge.
I'd like to move to a smaller town sometime. But being a city boy myself, it can be very hard to get used to that way of life on a long-term basis. You have to completely change who you are and, to a greater extent, the way you view the outside world.
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My party schedule:
2009-02-21 - DJ Attention @ I'm So Popular
2009-06-18 - DJ Annoying @ People Need To Know Where I'll Be
2012-11-32 - DJ Insufferable ɸ Or At Least the Stalkers I Complain About
2048-06-66 - Spastic & Whocares ¶ Although I'm Actually Flattered
9999-45-81 - Tweaker Gimp ☼ I Probably Won't Even Go To This But I Have To Make Sure I Fill Up All The Available Space Here
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