New Orleans Is Great, It's Just Not For Me

I have been wanting to write this post for a while but I have not for fear that I was going to offend a few people. I'm going to write it anyway.

A few days ago I applied for a job in Columbus, Ohio at Ohio State University. It is a very interesting looking job and will be great for my career if I get it. The interesting thing is the reaction I get from some people when I tell them about it.

No one has given me a positive reaction. I've gotten amazement and puzzled looks and people asking "Ohio, really?". I did a couple of hours research on Columbus before I even applied just to see if it somewhere I would like to live. It has its high points but this post isn't about Columbus.



I was born and raised in New Orleans, LA and I've lived in the area for all my 37 years. I love the food and Mardi Gras is great but I would rather leave town than hang around for it. The traffic gets unreal and I really hate dealing with belligerent drunks which always seem to accompany Mardi Gras.

I currently live in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans in neighboring Jefferson parish (the Louisiana equivalent of a county). I belong to several groups like Social Media Club New Orleans, Net Squared New Orleans, and in the past was a member of NOLA Yurp and Young Leadership Council. These organizations have all their meetings in downtown New Orleans. Honestly, I don't like going downtown. I hate driving around for 10-20 minutes to find a parking place on the street and then having to feed a meter or pay some huge amount to park in a lot. I always wonder if the car is still going to still be there when I come back with all of its contents still inside of it.

I meet people at every meeting that extol the virtues of New Orleans and make claims that the cost of living is lower here citing housing as an example. As a former real estate agent, I can tell you that aside from a few major cities like L.A., San Francisco, New York, Miami, Las Vegas, etc (you get the point, BIG cities) New Orleans is not that cheap. Houston, TX approximately 350 miles to our west has much cheaper homes and rental prices for an equal sized placed in New Orleans. Then when you add in much higher auto insurance, flood insurance, and school tuition of 4K to 10K a school year (because the public schools in NOLA have improved but they still have along way to go) it doesn't seem like such a bargain.

Look I'm not saying it isn't a great place to live if you like Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest and can afford to live in the affluent areas near Audubon Park or in the Garden District (which also has the best public school in NOLA). I guess I'm saying that it has never felt like home to me. In college I spent a little bit of time in places with names like Sheridan, Missoula, and Bozeman. Places where traffic was non-existent and you were greeted with incredible mountain views in every direction.

I guess I'm saying I prefer the mountains of Missoula to the Mississippi delta and Frontiers Days to Mardi Gras. A log cabin on 40 acres is more appealing than a mansion on St. Charles Ave and spending the weekends backpacking in the Grand Tetons is way better than strolling through the antique shops on Magazine St.

Photo Grand Tetons Barns courtesy Jon Sullivan, PD Photo