People in New England are generally not at all polite but very kind.

Like if you waved at someone they'd give you the bird but if you dropped your groceries someone would help you pick them up.

I live in a rough area. The kind of problems it brings are far, far, far more manageable than the kind of problems that trying to exist in a "nice" area where some large fraction of people will hate me for how I live and have no real problems so they'll focus on me. Nobody gives a shit what you do in the hood. If you don't make part of your living doing some sort of business outside the law the violence will probably never visit you. That said, despite violence being not great, property crime generally is quite low here compared to even much nicer areas in other corners of the country so that takes a lot of the inconvenience off IMO.