These two South Carolina cities are among the ‘most neighborly’ in the US, report says

South Carolinians love thy neighbor more than most, according to a recent report. Or at least these two cities do.

Columbia is the third “most neighborly” city in America, and Greenville placed ninth, a Neighbor.com report found.

The 100 biggest U.S. cities were all ranked, with ratings determined by factors including charitable giving, formal and informal volunteering, and overall “community well being.”

Informal volunteering means doing favors for family, friends and neighbors, and the report considered this the most important measurement, as it “captured the spirit of being neighborly better than the other data points included.”

Columbians are giving of their time and money.

In Columbia, 85% of itemized tax deductions included charitable giving, and the average donation was $6,324, according to the report.

On top of that, a high rate of residents — 7.3% — reported informal volunteering, “which is the very definition of being neighborly, if you ask us,” the report said.

Greenville earned a top spot on the list for a different reason: carpooling. According to the report, 11.2% of Greenville’s workforce carpools, placing above the national average.

Additionally, Greenville had a lot of charitable donations listed in tax returns, slightly more than Columbia, at 86.2%.

As neighborly as these Palmetto State cities may be, Augusta, Georgia took the top spot. There are plenty of reasons, according to the report. Chief among them is nearly a quarter of the city’s residents formally volunteer, and 9% volunteer on their own time, independent of any organization.