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Take this with a laaaarge grain of salt.

Boston.com - August 17 2010
Honestly, Boston is honest
Posted by Anne Fitzgerald, Globe Travel Editor August 17, 2010 08:21 AM

Honest Tea, an organic bottled tea company based in Bethesda, Maryland, recently conducted social experiments in several US cities, including Boston, by setting up unmanned kiosks of Honest Tea bottles for purchase on the honor system. For each bottle, people were asked to put a buck in a locked plastic box. Boston proved to be the most honest, eking out a first-place finish with 93.3 percent honesty, just ahead of Washington, D.C.?s 93 percent. Other cities were San Francisco, 91 percent; New York, 89 percent; Atlanta, 89 percent; Chicago, 78 percent; and Los Angeles, 75 percent.

?Although a sociologist might find flaws with our social experiment, we were surprised and heartened to discover that across the country, Americans will do the right thing, even when no one is looking,? said Seth Goldman, who bills himself as the TeaEO of Honest Tea.

The company produced short videos of each city?s experiment. In LA, one woman bought 10 bottles to give away to strangers. In Washington, a homeless man paid a buck and expressed thanks for someone believing in him. In San Francisco, a woman asked ?What if we placed more trust in people. How could the honor system benefit society on a grander scale??

Boston?s clip showed a bunch of honest people ponying up for the brew and one guy who pulled up on a bicycle, snagged a bottle, and rode away without paying ? right by what looks like two Boston cops.

Posted by Paul E. Kandarian, Globe correspondent
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There's been an "honor system" book stand on Brattle St. in Cambridge doing this for years. I guess Bostonians have just had lots of practice?
 
I wonder where and when they put that stand up. I can imagine things would have went differently if the stand was set up outside a RedSox/Celtics/Bruins game with tons of drunken rowdy fans, or next to the Pine Street Inn, or next to a college campus, or in a high crime neighborhood.

"?!Where did our stand go?!"
 
I read that the "anit snob" 40B law is up for vote this election year. They say its doomed. It seemed like a good way to mix up the suburbs w/ a bit more affordable housing options.
 
BarbaricManchurian said:
What are the chances for the initiative to lower sales tax to 3% to pass?
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What the chances the legislature would listen to the ballot initiative? Remember the clean elections law that was voted in by the people and ignored by the state until they could find a friendly judge to nullify it?
 
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In a just world that would be the awful Orange Line platform connector at State Street Station.....
 
Well, we had a ballot initiative pass lowering the income tax to 5% yet the legislature has ignored it, so passing another one lowering tax to 3% won't make much difference.
 
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Burger King has opened a new-style restaurant in Manhattan (and in several other major cities, I believe).

It's a Burger King that serves liquor.
 
And a burger pizza. I used to go there when I worked in Times Sq and I might just have to go back.
 
JohnAKeith said:
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Burger King has opened a new-style restaurant in Manhattan (and in several other major cities, I believe).

It's a Burger King that serves liquor.
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The website for the Manhattan location has only soft drinks. Even the bourbon sauce has an asterisk that points to a disclaimer that the sauce does not contain alcohol.

The Miami Beach location has "ice cold beer" (Trappist Belgian microbrews, I'm guessing, right?)

So the lesson is if you go here, be drunk already.
 
Can someone explain, in a concise fashion, why Sydney always scores so high on these lists?
 
Few cities in Asia/Oceania are as demographically diverse as Sydney. Many global professional services firms (consulting, banking, etc) have large offices in Sydney to serve East Asian, especially Southeast Asian, clients. And the reverse is true as well that East Asian exporters may do business in Sydney to reach developed market companies that do not have a direct East Asian presence. Sort of a more sleepy and more firmly developed market version of Hong Kong.
 
Love it. The "Stone Pub" was where the Bell in Hand is today or was/is next door? And was it named so because it's where the first marker was placed showing the center of Boston?
 
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