Which Neighborhoods Say Hello?
Introducing the HelloRatio — a crowdsourced friendliness index for cities, neighborhoods, and streets.
How friendly is this place, really?
Not the five star restaurants. Not the city managed parks. Not the walkability score. The people. If you walk down the street, is it friendly? Will a stranger say hello?
The HelloRatio is a simple metric: the percentage of strangers who greet you on a walk. It’s built from real walks logged by real people — not surveys, not reviews. Observable behavior. A crowdsourced map of where humans still acknowledge each other in public space.
The idea draws on decades of research in urban sociology and social psychology — from Stanley Milgram’s work on how city density suppresses casual interaction, to Erving Goffman’s concept of “civil inattention,” to Gillian Sandstrom’s modern findings that even brief stranger interactions reduce loneliness and build trust.
We’re in the early stages — walking, logging, and building the dataset by hand. An app is coming. But right now, I’m looking for people who want to help answer a deceptively simple question about the places we live:
Will I feel like a stranger here?
Want to help map friendliness in your city? Drop me a line at dave@winwithflynn.com. Walking shoes required. Lab coat optional.
