New York ranked third in a recent survey done by Reader's Digest to determine the world's most honest cities. Finland Helsinki took the lead while Mumbai, India, bagged the second position.
Honesty is a very valued trait but unfortunately is difficult to come across these days. In a recent "lost wallet" survey, Reader's Digest made a list of the world's most honest cities based on scores. The survey was conducted across four continents, 16 cities and included 192 "lost wallets."
For the survey, Reader's Digest dropped wallets in malls, sidewalks, parking lots across 16 cities. All wallets contained money equivalent to $50 in native currency, a family photograph, a phone number and it was to find out how many people would pick up the wallet and return it to its rightful owner.
The scores were calculated based on how many wallets out of 12 in each city were returned and it was found that the capital city of Finland, Helsinki, was the most honest city in the world with a score of 11 out of 12. This suggests 90 percent of people involved in the project honestly returned the "lost wallet" to their owners.
As the list proceeds, the score for each city declined. Mumbai, the commercial capital city of India, secured the second place with 9 wallets out of 12 being returned to their rightful owners. Budapest, Hungary and New York shared the third rank in the list with eight out of 12 wallets being returned.
Portugal's Lisbon city was announced as the least honest city due to its lowest score, only one out of 12 wallets were returned to owners.
Below is the list of all the cities arranged according to their honesty scores (Higher scores suggest greater honesty)
1. Helsinki, Finland - 11 out of 12 wallets
2. Mumbai, India - 9 out of 12
3. Budapest, Hungary and New York City, USA - 8 out of 12
4. Moscow, Russia and Amsterdam, Netherlands - 7 out of 12
5. Berlin, Germany and Ljubljana, Slovenia - 6 out of 12
6. London, UK and Warsaw, Poland - 5 out of 12
7. Bucharest, Romania and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - 4 out of 12
8. Zurich, Switzerland - 4 out of 12
9. Prague, Czech Republic - 3 out of 12
10. Madrid, Spain - 2 out of 12
11. Lisbon, Portugal - 1 out of 12.
