Despite being a "major" (if not an especially large) city, New Orleans has always been a pretty friendly place, where acquaintances and even strangers normally exchange nods and greetings on the street: the simple "Hey" and "Where y'at" are both in common usage, and more polite "Good Mornings" and "Good Evenings" are still pretty popular among older folks. (When I first arrived here in 1969, the old-fashioned French usage of saying "Good Evening" anytime after 12 noon was still common enough, especially by older black ladies; I found this kinda perplexing on bright sunny afternoons when I had just gotten of bed after a late night!)

During our recent exile in the New Jersey/New York area, it was a bit of a shock to see how strongly most strangers strive to avoid eye contact with each other. My kids, who had lived all their lives in the Crescent City, were especially aware and taken aback. I think the determination to ignore each other is stronger in small-town New Jersey than in the big city itself, surprisingly enough ~ New Yorkers are not really as unfriendly as advertised, and seem more ready to recognize each other's existence than do the suburbanites.

Eye contact and greetings between individuals of different races seems to be especially verboten in the Northeast. Black and white folks are visibly much more comfortable with each other in southeast Louisiana (and, probably, throuhgout the South) than in the urban/suburban northeast.