Brickell Ranked No. 7 Friendliest U.S. Neighborhood. Miami Isn’t Buying It.

Journalists at New Times are constantly bombarded with surveys and "studies" that are typically tied to a particular product, then left to discern the reports' legitimacy and determine if they are just flimsy public relations tactics.

Earlier this month, a "study" wound up in South Florida journalists' email inboxes, declaring Brickell one of the friendliest neighborhoods in the U.S., and three popular Miami Instagram accounts decided to run with it.

"This Miami neighborhood is apparently one of the friendliest in the U.S.," TimeOut Miami posted on Instagram. Soon thereafter, Only in Dade and World Red Eye followed with posts of their own about Brickell supposedly falling into America's top ten friendliest cities.

Miami social media users were floored by Brickell's placement on the list, especially considering that an August 2024 study ranked Magic City as a whole the rudest city in the U.S.

Comments were as follows:

"Who paid for this 😂😂😂."

"Not accurate. Not even a little bit accurate..."

"That is ridiculous. I worked in Brickell almost the first two years I lived in Miami. It is snobby AF."

"TOTAL BS."

Like other Miamians, New Times wanted to know how exactly Brickell earned the distinction of the seventh friendliest neighborhood in the USA.

Hastha Kalalu, an online Indian crafts store based in rural Massachusetts, conducted the study, which crunched data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Zillow, and analyzed violent crime rates. The specific data points that the study used for each neighborhood were its population, area in square miles, density, percentage of family households, median household income, average house value, violent crime rates per 1,000 residents, the cost of living, and home daily views.

The study utilized the information to compute a "friendliness" score for dozens of cities. New Times wondered, alongside Florida International University mathematics and statistics professor Sneh Gulati, "How exactly do these data points indicate a city's level of friendliness?"

"The question is what is the definition of friendly," Gulati tells New Times. "Okay, violent crime is one of them so that neighborhood doesn't have too much violent crime. The cost of living is low. I imagine it's friendly. But what about the rest? Population density. I mean to me, unless there's a study that backs up these factors. I don't know how they are justifying it."

Gulati, who maintains that she is just a statistician not a social scientist, says it is unclear how the data correlates, given that there is no published and peer-reviewed paper that measures friendliness.

"What's the definition of friendly, right? For me, it might be, I have loads of neighbors that I can be friends with or I know that they're there when I need them. That's a friendly neighborhood," she adds. "Yes, I want low crime, but that, to me, is more like a safe neighborhood than a friendly neighborhood."

Well, for what it is worth, Maryvale, a village in Phoenix, Arizona, which came in eighth on the list, is known for its gang violence and crime. Just look at the r/phoenix subreddit to get a feel for the area.

"It has been the worst living experience I have ever had," a Reddit user wrote. "Roosters crowing ALL day (against city code), loud music at night till two to three a.m. that shakes the walls. Extremely loud vehicles driving by at high speeds all day, very disrespectful neighbors, and the gunshot lullabies every night."

Maryvale sounds so welcoming and friendly!