Being neighborly is in our DNA. For the fourth straight year, we’re celebrating the communities that have gone above and beyond to connect, support one another, and demonstrate what it means to be a good neighbor.
In honor of National Good Neighbor Day, we utilized ratings and post data from OfferUp’s 56 million yearly users and analyzed it across six key metrics – communicativeness, friendliness, generosity, honesty, punctuality, and reliability – to identify the most neighborly cities and states in America.
For the third year in a row, Washington claims the title of America’s Most Neighborly State. Following closely behind is California, maintaining its No. 2 ranking for the third straight year, and Illinois in third. Maryland tied with New Mexico for fourth place, followed by Alabama, which saw the biggest jump in the rankings from No. 9 in 2021 to No. 6. Rounding out the top ten is newcomer Massachusetts, which secured its 2022 place as America’s 10th Most Neighborly State.
A new No. 1 city emerged in the rankings this year with California’s San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose taking the top spot from Seattle-Tacoma, which came up short at No. 2. Not far behind Seattle-Tacoma is Los Angeles (No. 3), which held its ranking for the third year in a row. Rounding out the top five is Denver, which climbed up the ranks from No. 7 to No. 4, and Chicago at No. 5.
Breaking Down Neighborliness
When evaluating neighborliness, we specifically looked at communicativeness, friendliness, generosity, honesty, punctuality, and reliability. When looking at each of these factors individually, Alabama’s Birmingham-Anniston-Tuscaloosa ranked No. 1 for five of the six categories. Meanwhile, Seattle-Tacoma ranked the most generous city in America for the second year in a row. Finally, five new cities entered the rankings this year, including Columbia, SC (No. 5 for communicativeness); Albuquerque (No. 5 for friendliness); Springfield-Holyoke, MA (No. 4 for generosity); Baltimore, MD (No. 5 for punctuality); Chicago (No. 5 for reliability).
Methodology
OfferUp’s 2022 Good Neighbor Day Report analyzed internal data from OfferUp’s community of 56 million yearly users to determine the most neighborly cities and states in America. The data analyzed spans from August 2021 to July 2022. OfferUp facilitates millions of meetups and sales per year, and after each, both buyers and sellers can rate the quality of their experiences. OfferUp analyzed data across buyer/seller ratings of “communicative,” “friendly,” “item as described,” “on time” and “reliable.”
OfferUp defined neighborliness as the combination of these five qualities plus generosity, which was measured by the number of local free postings per capita. OfferUp grouped cities by their Designated Market Area (DMA). To calculate city and state rank, the six metrics were weighted equally and averaged for a composite category of “neighborliness.” Minimum usage and transaction thresholds were applied at the state and city level to ensure statistical relevance of the results. Collectively, the rating activity of over 98% of OfferUp’s monthly active users is included in this methodology.