There is a whole genre of videos on YouTube where Europeans in the U.S. for the World Cup rave about how happy and friendly the locals are. Click on one and your feed fills up with them. These mostly start with saying that this is in rural America, away from the big cities. As a rural American that is my impression too. The people I bump into at the local one-horse town gas station are routinely more open and friendly than the ones in Albuquerque.
The author is comparing the locals to people in Baja California. Based on the above I'll predict that his locals are urban.
"People who live in small towns and rural areas are happier than everyone else, researchers say". -- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/05/17/peopl...