Not every American city rolls out the welcome mat. Some destinations, no matter how visually stunning or culturally rich, leave visitors feeling dismissed, ignored, or just plain unwelcome. Rudeness in public is more measurable than people think, and recent data paints a surprisingly specific picture of where travelers are most likely to have an unpleasant run-in with the locals. According to Preply’s widely cited 2024 rudeness study, a total of 2,533 survey participants across 46 of America’s largest cities were asked to recall how often they had experienced fellow residents demonstrating behaviors such as listening to music or watching videos in shared spaces, ignoring strangers, being disrespectful of personal space, and careless driving. The results were hard to ignore, and a handful of cities stood out from the rest by a significant margin.
To determine the rankings, Preply surveyed residents about social behaviors they noticed in their city and calculated a city rudeness score based on the answers. They applied scores to responses that indicated a higher frequency of rudeness and calculated the average score for each city, adjusting those scores on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 representing the rudest. On average, locals ranked their city’s residents’ behavior as 4.9 out of 10, and the five cities below blew past that average by a wide margin. Here they are, ranked from the fifth rudest to the absolute worst.
#5: Oakland, California – Rudeness Score: 8.67
Oakland is famous as the cultural center of the East Bay and is home to the renowned Art Deco Paramount Theater, offering easy access to world-class museums, restaurants, and the iconic Oakland Bay Bridge. However, with a rudeness score of 8.67, it ranks as the fifth-rudest city in the US. Oakland didn’t even make the list in Preply’s 2022 rankings, which makes its appearance in the top five all the more striking. The jump suggests something has genuinely shifted in how residents interact with one another and with visitors.
Locals in Miami, Oakland, and Tucson said people in their city are ruder than those in any other city. So it’s not just outsiders saying it. Oakland’s own people are pointing fingers at each other, which tells you something about how the daily social experience feels on the ground there. It’s a city with real passion and culture, but the survey data is clear: the day-to-day public behavior is leaving a lot to be desired. As one of the most populated cities in the East Bay region, Oakland has a diverse population with varying behaviors, so this rudeness score may not come as a surprise to many.
#4: Louisville, Kentucky – Rudeness Score: 8.72
Louisville’s ranking as the fourth rudest city in America, with a rudeness score of 8.72, may raise some eyebrows. While this finding might seem surprising for a city known for its Southern hospitality, it’s important to note that the study assessed the overall behavior of city residents, not just sports fans. The Derby City has historically leaned on its reputation for charm and friendliness, making this data point genuinely difficult to reconcile with its image. Visitors heading there for the Kentucky Derby or other major events may find the reality on the street doesn’t quite match the brochures.
Louisville, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Austin, Texas, all placed at least five spots higher in the rude rankings than they did in 2022, which means things are getting worse, not better, for the Derby City. Some observers have suggested that passionate Louisville Cardinals fans may contribute to perceptions of rudeness in the city. A report in the New York Post noted that Louisville residents are among the rudest in the nation, even more so than they were in 2022.
#3: Tampa, Florida – Rudeness Score: 8.88
In Preply’s initial 2022 study, Tampa didn’t even make the top 12. The only Florida city ranked two years ago was Jacksonville at number 12, with Philadelphia, Memphis, and New York City taking the top three spots. Tampa’s near-total absence from the rudeness conversation just two years ago makes its current third-place ranking all the more dramatic. It’s a city that has grown fast in population and tourism, and that growth appears to be creating friction. The most common rude behaviors Americans saw others doing included being loud in public or on the phone, having little self-awareness, and not caring for others.
Miami, Philadelphia, and Tampa ranked as the top three rudest cities in America, with residents in those cities ranking as the rudest in 2024. Ironically, Tampa’s tourism industry is booming at the same time its residents are earning this reputation. Visit Tampa Bay said 2024 will be a record year for tourism in Hillsborough County, bringing in more than a billion dollars in taxable hotel revenue. The tension between massive visitor numbers and increasingly impatient residents seems to be showing up in how people treat each other every day.
#2: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Rudeness Score: 9.12
Philadelphia, deemed in the 2022 survey to be the rudest city, earned a score of 9.12 in 2024, putting it in second place. Although Philadelphia ranked as the second rudest, the city’s residents have actually gotten kinder since 2022, when they ranked number one. That’s technically an improvement, but a score of 9.12 out of 10 on a rudeness scale is still an uncomfortable place to land. The city’s notoriously intense sports culture, fast-paced streets, and tightly knit neighborhoods all contribute to an atmosphere that can feel unwelcoming to anyone who doesn’t already know the unspoken local rules.
Although nicknamed the “City of Brotherly Love,” Americans typically stereotype Philadelphians as rude, but locals tend to attribute their behavior to a feeling of insularity in the city. Reluctant to incorporate outsiders, many residents have learned to keep to themselves while growing up in a busy city. The top cities with ruder locals included Philadelphia, Boston, Memphis, Detroit, and New York City. For visitors, that insularity can read as indifference or outright hostility, even when it’s simply the product of a population accustomed to keeping their heads down.
#1: Miami, Florida – Rudeness Score: 9.88
A recent survey from Preply.com revealed Miami, Florida, to be the “rudest” city in the U.S. based on responses from participants in 46 of America’s largest cities. Miami ranks as the most inconsiderate city in 2024, with a rudeness score of 9.88 – an almost perfect score on a scale measuring bad behavior, putting Miami in a category entirely its own. No other city in the survey came close. It scored 9.88 out of 10 for residents displaying rude behaviors, including lack of public awareness, loud phone conversations in shared spaces, and disrespect towards service staff. That’s not just a first-place finish. It’s a landslide.
Miami’s residents are just generally not very proud of their city, which scored low for culture, food, cleanliness and safety. According to residents and visitors, the only good time of the year to visit Miami is during the winter, and it’s really only good for wild weekends. Miami is a world-class city with incredible food, culture, and energy, but if you’re looking for warmth from the locals, you may want to manage your expectations before you land at MIA. The city’s glossy reputation as a playground for the wealthy and famous appears to coexist with a daily social culture that many residents and visitors find cold, self-absorbed, and aggressively indifferent.
What the Data Tells Us About Rudeness Across America
In 2024, lack of care for others, being loud in shared spaces, and lack of self-awareness were the most common rude actions that people noticed in public. The cities were ranked based on behaviors including a lack of self-awareness, talking on speakerphone in shared spaces, being excessively loud in public areas, watching videos or listening to music without headphones, a general disregard for others, not acknowledging strangers, and being absorbed in phones and ignoring those around them. These aren’t abstract criticisms. They’re the everyday frictions that stack up over the course of a trip and leave visitors feeling unwelcome long after they’ve returned home.
Nearly one in four Americans have considered moving somewhere else due to people’s rude behaviors in their city. The poll also highlighted that politics is playing a role in rudeness, with roughly half of Americans reporting that their cities have become more rude ahead of the 2024 election. On a more positive note, the cities that ranked as least rude in 2024 are Omaha, Nebraska, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and San Diego, California – cities that generally exhibit a welcoming atmosphere for locals and visitors alike. On the most-improved list – cities that dropped the furthest in the rudeness rankings – were Washington, D.C., Detroit, San Jose, California, and Milwaukee, showing that it’s possible for the general norm in a city to frequently change, resulting in a more positive experience for those who reside in or visit it.