Am I crazy? Thinking on moving to New Orleans.

The negatives you listed (and listed first, mind you) all sound like the wrong side of must-haves for your entire family. The positives you listed all sound like nice-to-haves for you (and maybe your wife). Without saying the word selfish I'd say you take a step back and think about your original post. And hey, when you ask for advice you're gonna get it haha

To me, it sounds like you are trying to tell us that New Orleans is a nice place to visit.

 

I think you let your prejudice about prepping get the better of you. You failed to consider my life circumstances and why I may be more inclined to be prepared and investigate living situations more carefully than those of a more sedentary nature.


I live in an RV and travel. Visit a new city every month. I kinda have to be more alert as I'm constantly in unknown territory. So I come to this discussion with probably a keener sense of scoping out new areas and what clues are important as pertains to personal safety.

I don't live in fear as I'm prepared which is not to say I make mistakes and end up in less than ideal places for a while, and learn from my mistakes. Again I'm prepared and simply move on if I get weird vibes.


I've certainly learned to NOT pick a place to camp based on entertainment opportunities in 2020!

 

Anyone who intentionally moves to places that are below sea level, on precarious mudslide slopes, or other places prone to savage acts of nature have no right to complain when it all goes wrong. If a person does move to one of these places, they need to just man up when it goes sideways. Enjoy it, but I don't want to hear about it. I'm tired of bailing these people out.

 

No, the City is not good for kids. Not OK in the slightest.

All the other problems are secondary to that. Your kids will grow up (if they get through in one piece) as undereducated, behind the eight ball misfits who won't be able to catch up with the incredible pace of change in more advanced places. You want dead kids, in jail kids, or drug addicted kids, this is your ticket. It just isn't fair to them. Long ago I decided I would have no kids, or if I found myself a parent I would simply have to go.

But you could look in St. Tammany or Tangipahoa Parishes. And commute in I suppose, on I-55 or across the Lake.

 

Based on where I grew up and still live, you are crazy.

I wished all the people that are moving here were as crazy as you.

 

I am 100 miles north of the city and that is just about the perfect distance for me. I love to visit NOLA but wouldn't live there by choice.

 

I hear you.

Basically, the City needs to be cut back to a remnant population, to maintain the ports and the basic infrastructure. Sure, the place has decadent charm and in ordinary years, the whole Thanksgiving to Easter period is excellent weather and there's so much for young and unattached people to do. Or, there was.

But there's a block of population who still cannot get it into their brains, that they're on the knife edge. And they will be just as shocked, maybe more shocked when the City gets inundated again. After Katrina many made a solemn promise to leave - that they had learned their lesson. If they had gotten out (as others did) in 2005-6 they could've gotten in at the ground floor in Nashville or etc. Take that $ 300,000 and buy something nice, for cash. And your wages cover your kid's schooling and 15 years later, that $ 300,000 investment is now sometimes worth a Million. But for those who stayed, now they're stuck. They can't afford it anywhere else.

All the money that was spent, "fortifying" the City forgot this point that you just made. Under the rubble, organic muck and sand the City is built on, there's layers of material that are slowly, inexorably sliding into the Gulf of Mexico. Hey, we studied this in school at LSUNO in 1971. That people don't know, is because they don't want to know.

About the bailout. Suppose NOLA and four other coastal cities all get rocked in the same year? We won't have to be tired of the bailing out - no, we just won't have the grits. Not even close.

 

All I'm saying is that if it were me and my SO, I'd be sorting out the items on your negatives list before even considering anything on the positives list.

Oh yeah, and the whole part about the city being on the wrong side of a fight with gravity itself, it just ain't for me haha. Hang your guitars on the wall of the second floor of your house, amps on risers, etc. That city will flood again and again and again, it's really basic physics haha

 

As pointed out in the NOLA versus Holland comparison, it's not *entirely* physics.

 

I think both the I-55 and the I-59 corridors, going North away from the City and in Mississippi so you're less likely to be overwhelmed by all of Louisiana's impending fiscal problems, isn't a bad idea. And I think the Internet might soften some of the considerable Culture Shock a Chicagoan might feel. But I think it would be fair to say that a place like Osyka or Liberty would be even hotter and more uncomfortable - I'd prefer to recommend 19 year old homesteaders with 5% or less body fat. Otherwise you're stuck inside in the AC all the time. It takes a tough person to get a full day's work in outside, where you are.

 

that's fairly promising then.

I lived in the area between 1984-89. Long enough. I know many things have changed since then, even if it's just the number of my friends who have passed.

the climate is, uh, challenging. Since your wife is from Florida, maybe not so much for her.

Challenging not just on your physical person, but on all the infrastructure as well. Stuff just doesn't last as long, when it's in and out of a boiling bag. I couldn't believe anywhere could be more humid than Houston, but I was wrong. And, yup, there's a chance that it just won't be bailed out, in one of those 1:1000 years storms that seem to be experiencing a cluster sequence...

Every place has it's own weather stuff, though.

And if you've learned to survive in a US city, New Orleans isn't some uniquely savage urban environment. Families grow up there all the time. If your family is all in for the adventure, you can do it. But like others have recommended, maybe try it with training wheels first. If you rent for the first year, you'll get a better idea of what parts of town work best for you.

the music is unique, and very much a part of everyday life, IME, IMO. Honestly, there isn't much else to do - unless you have some way to get out on the water. So, yeah, going out is just part of life - there's food and music and family. I knew people who have three, four generations in the same neighborhood - and if anyone in the family moved out to the North shore (like Mandeville, Covington) well, they may as well have moved to Canada.

One of my friends there was convinced that he might have to adjust recipes for the "change in altitude" moving from New Orleans to Mandeville...

And there's no comparison to the average suburban "culture". I guess I've done my time in the soulless suburbs and I guess I'm fine with people who choose that, because it makes it easier to be in the city. For me, there's not much allure in being a tourist all the time. Cities survive because enough families decide to stick it out.

I'd leave the arguments for "authenticity" in music or gentrification for other folks to worry about and live your best life. Music can be a universal language that surpasses all that bs.

Ok, yeah, and maybe develop an exit plan as well.

My 2 cents. I also lived in Chicago, 1970, in a Ukrainian neighborhood on the northside, right up against the L. Interesting times.

 

Yeah it's too complex to narrow down to a single idea or theory.
I don't think choosing to follow your dreams rather than money will create a New Orleans music scene and culture, nor do I think that culture is forged in an ideal to follow ones dreams. We may see it as an idealism, but the local culture may see it as the only way they know.
Places like Brooklyn lofts surrounded by crack dealers where artists move for cheap rent end up big money, but of course that's not a family/ bloodline based community.

The culture that creates culture, what is it?

So is that culture a place to raise a basically imported family?
IDK, never lived there.

 

I remember driving across the lake in deep thought one afternoon after Katrina (as often happens on the bridge), and thinking "How are they gonna sell this (all the government spending shortly to arrive) to the guy sitting on his back porch in Montana?" Why are they spending his hard-earned tax dollars to press the RESET button on this bowl 1,500 miles away that will still sit below sea level, just waitin' for the next one.

 

All due respect but although there has no doubt been a large influx of new people post-Katrina the racial demographics have returned to pre-Katrina and i hazard a guess so have the economic demographics - people from new orleans almost never leave (look at me) and when they do they return it seems - and while there have been pockets of gentrification i must say driving around and bicycling around new orleans like i do one thing I think this city could use is a little more gentrification

@deytookerjaabs - New Orleans is still a cheaper place to buy a decent house than most cities in the states you just need to look around - and chances are you will find something you like that even has a little funky charm. Mid-City, Holy Cross, Bywater would be worth a look.

Re flooding - following Katrina the federally-maintained levees broke - had the levees held it would have been a wind event - since the storm the levees have been fortified like never before - and all that said, there was still a slice of NO - the sliver by the river uptown which did not flood - and if you look you might find something even there that you can afford.

Schools - since Katrina mostly charter and much better than pre-storm - just have to check around cause some are not good. some great private schools available.

Hot and humid in the summer but you get used to it.

born and raised here

 

What about fun?

 

you can stand on the mississippi river levee and clearly see that the surface of the river current is sometimes a good ten or more feet above the surface of the surrounding land - but note the river levees did not breach in Katrina -

 

Who, me?

 

oddly enough new orleans as a city has not been know for riots that have plagued other cities in the recent round - and likewise back in '68 - never such in my life of 67 years - statues came down by city order not toppled by gangs - although there has been some graffiti and defacement - maybe its because of the history of police brutality (earned but now a thing of the past imho)

 

No guarantee of a repeat of Katrina next time. Remember, we got the weak side of the storm that day, with Mississippi taking the stronger more violent side. If the eye had just been a little further west, it would have been a whole different story, as it could be next time.