Exeter is crowned as one of the friendliest cities within England

From a survey initiated by the holiday park operators Parkdean Resorts, Exeter is named the second friendliest city within the region of the UK. Within the top 50 cities mentioned, Edinburgh came in first place and swiftly after, came the city of Exeter. Coming in within the third and fourth positions, was the cities Oxford and Glasgow, and fifth being the city of Bournemouth.

These cities came to their positions due to it being primarily down to the sense of ‘community’ that was experienced there by holiday makers. Yet we can all agree that due to the challenging past year and a half, the community feel has been lost in a physical sense completely due to restrictions. Leavinxag people to turn towards digital realms and congregations like that of Slotsia, which has managed to amass a large gambling community during this period of time.

You may be wondering reading this, what are the actual guidelines and terms to give the cities such a predominant ranking? Well, there are fixed factors that are used to help the rank placemats, based on a point system. 

The ranking criteria is as follows:

• How happy the residents are (happiness)?
• The safety of the residents within the town or city that they live in (safety and crime combined).
• Business innovations within the local community (how many local businesses exist within the city).
• Community and togetherness (activities which unite citizens of the city). Think football clubs and sports teams i.e. Manchester United.
• Facebook and social media pages in general, which are dedicated to the area and city and highlight huge engagement from its citizens.

While moving to a new city can be a massively daunting task, when there is a sense of community, it does make moving homes far easier. Community engages the idea of making new friends and bonds which run deeper than just general acquaintances. Therefore, by using the criteria, you can gather that the top five locations would be of the top hotspots to feel at home and welcome. 

Often, the secret to settling in for any newcomer to a city, is a local pub or community centre which engages with getting to know you on a personal level. Guaranteed, you are not likely to find this in huge corporate based cities like London for example, however smaller cities give you the complete opposite effect. The places that are best for a cheap pint ultimately end up being the areas that make a profound impact on your living situations at the end of the day. Warmer communities are places where people can imagine themselves staying for the long-term duration and future.

When discussing what Exeter actually scored in numerical values, it came in with a huge 356 points in total. It is believed that the score came down to the fact that Exeter was hugely friendly and warm, and the community had multiple events where visitors and newcomers could tag along to, to engage with more people and get to make friends. 

Even the Facebook groups were hugely important to aiding the city score of Exeter. In fact, there were a total of 95 groups on Facebook which were all created with the aim of introducing isolated individuals with a larger friend’s base and building long lasting friendships to move towards the future with. Exeter pretty much nailed the level of social media engagement from locals, with the top score of 9.8 out of 10 on that one, which certainly speaks volumes with regard to the city's image overall.

Another huge scoring quality on the criteria list was the happiness factor. That managed to pull in a 8 out of 10, and it is believed that the surrounding quality of life that people can build within the city, could be a contributing factor towards that. Quality of life is massively important for anyone’s overall viewpoint when it comes to a city's charm and quality. Happiness will take into account all the factors of the specification listed above, in addition to the general energy and atmosphere that the city brings to visitors. Therefore, judging by the score that Exeter managed to get, it must definitely be the place to visit next, for those looking to take a trip away more locally.