Therefore I'm annoyed by statements saying that the people of x are friendly but that those of y are not - implying that all the people of y are flawed in some sense.
Often it's all a matter of manner & timing of approach anyway. Given the right circumstances, you'll find the people of y just as friendly as x.
Thus in a remote villege, with few visitors and in particular no loutish ones, the residents may seem welcoming as they've had few bad experiences with visitors.
For instance, in a place like Cambridge, with millions of visitors, both pleasant and unpleasant, each year, each resident has a good chance of having unfortunate encounters, which then colours future behaviour. Being a mecca for beggars also doesn't help.
Since coming up with this idea in 1990/1, I've heard variants of it from others.