How to tell if a city sucks, in under 5 minutes

I travel quite a bit. For work, I'm travelling often, and in my free time, I enjoy going to new places. And I've discovered something. You can determine what a city is like solely by its airport.

It's true. Fly into JFK, and you'll see it's dirty and crowded. Tucson's airport is small, and has a distinctive Mexican flavor. San Jose is clean, crowded, and full of cool tech stuff. Sky Harbor in Phoenix is big, crowded, and full of chain restaurants, just like Phoenix.

I always test this theory when flying to a place for the first time. This last week, I flew to Little Rock. The airport was pretty small, very clean, closed early, and had very friendly employees. Little Rock was pretty small, very clean, closed early, and had friendly people. The theory works again!

Try this out for yourself and let me know if it's true for you as well. Oh, and if you get mugged at the airport, get your ass back on the plane and get the hell out of there. The city will be much worse.