For the past six months, working under the ethos of "the more we get together the happier we'll be," Vancouver City Hall has been embroiled in arguably one of the most utopian civic projects in Canadian municipal history.

Dubbed the Engaged City, it will, in the January words of Mayor Gregor Robertson, set out to fix Vancouver's "isolated, disengaged population" and prepare the 600,000 citizenry for the "tough challenges" of the future.

While the program touts the customary goals to increase voter turnout and spur participation in community planning, Engaged City planners have also been putting forward a number of suggestions that seem downright small-towney: Shared tables at restaurants where strangers could eat together, a city-wide block party day in the summer, a potluck day in the winter and a "Just Say Hello" campaign that would urge condo-dwellers to really go past the "polite exterior" and start to form "meaningful connections" with their neighbours.

And Vancouver is far from alone in this belief. In cities across North America, there are growing movements afoot to make the places "friendlier": Nametag campaigns in New York City, "say hi," billboards in Toronto urging citizens to "hug a stranger," and even Oprah Winfrey just launched an initiative this week to "just say hello." "When was the last time you said 'hello' to a stranger passing you on the street," she said in a Wednesday video message.

But in their quest to slay the perceived "chill" common to so many urban areas, these campaigns may be fighting a doomed battle to inject small town values into places that do not want them. Cities are — and always have been — institutions who thrive on the quiet agreement of strangers to keep to themselves. For in the close quarters and hubbub of a Canadian metropolis, often the most welcoming environment is the one in which there are no welcomes at all.

"Can you imagine walking through a commercial area on a Friday night and greeting everybody you pass?" said Pierre Hamel, a professor of sociology at the University of Montreal and author of the textbook Cities and Urban Sociology. "That would take an unbelievable amount of energy."

Mr. Hamel is civil to his fellow Montrealers, to be sure. He keeps up on local issues, he greets the residents of his 20-storey condo with a nod or a "salut," he lines up for the bus instead of crowding around the doorway — but he rarely goes so far as to disturb the personal bubbles of fellow commuters or pedestrians.

After all, he said, it was partly this phenomenon of urban anonymity that drew him to city life in the first place. "The anonymity of the big city is an extraordinary advantage for modern life," he said.

Before the launch of Engaged City, Vancouver had "Say Hi Vancouver," an annual day in February in which citizens would don special tags and greet strangers. Organizer Shelley Koorbatoff, who comes from the small town of Grand Forks, B.C., said she was inspired to launch the campaign after finding it difficult to make friends in Vancouver.

"What would that be like to actually feel like you could walk up to anyone on the street?" she told Postmedia last February.

In Toronto, meanwhile, the non-profit People for Good has spent the last few years launching massive ad campaigns urging citizens to smile at, wave at and even embrace strangers. "Renew Someone's Faith in Mankind. Smile At Them," reads one bus stop ad. "Hug a Stranger. We're All Relatives If We Go Back Far Enough," reads a billboard.

New York, most famously, has Nametag Day. Although the concept was once lampooned in a 1993 Seinfeld episode, last June a group of New Yorkers handed out free name tags at several of the city's transit hubs in the hope that the citizens of Gotham could spend a day greeting strangers by name. "We want New Yorkers to talk to each other more!" reads the group's official Facebook page.

As one particularly jaded Brooklynite reacted in a blog post, Nametag Day "sounds like absolute hell to me."

Indeed, while these campaigns are based on the premise that an anonymous smile, wave or conversation can brighten someone's day, for many, the effect may be the exact opposite.

Colin Ellard, a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Waterloo, said that in the midst of these friendliness campaigns, proponents are ignoring "the joy that might come from the anonymity that can be experienced in an urban environment."

While Mr. Ellard said that smiles among strangers can definitely help to liven up an otherwise painful ride in a crowded subway, he said it is important to note that one person's friendliness is another person's anxiety trigger. Introverts, in particular, can constitute up to 50