Great points, Richlacal. There are large sections of this city I won't go into at anytime. Others I won't go into after dark. I'm sure as heck not going into them during a mass crisis (whether natural disaster, nuke or TEOTWAWKI) unless in a convoy of armed troops.

The original post does ring true though, and it brings to my mind the increased friendliness of this city during and after big snowstorms.

Major snowstorms are a shared circumstance and even around here seems to smooth over the usual social barriers. Strangers are chattier, more tolerant and prone to pitch in to help individuals and community -- whether helping drivers whose cars are stuck, shoveling out an elderly neighbor's sidewalk or turning a hill into a universal park for sledding and tubing.

There are always exceptions, of course, and a few stories of fights over shoveled parking spaces, snowball assaults and peops who won't shovel their own sidewalk for the benefit of pedestrians, let alone anyone else's. And many people are happier with snowstorms, short-term anyway, because they are beautiful.

But by and large snowstorms evince this human tendency to coalesce in times of crisis.