Has anyone lived in New Orleans in the past 10 years? How was your experience?

I wish I knew what it was like to live there. I’ve only vacationed there. I’m no lover of America, but if I HAD to choose where to live it would be NOLA or up Seattle or Portland.

@cazzie It really is fabulous. But I’ve heard mixed reviews about actually living there. The one other nit is that my BF is an attorney and would have to take the Bar Exam there to practice law.

I’ve heard that crime can be a problem but we live in Harlem now so we know how that goes. Education for kids is also a concern but in NYC we’d have to send our kids to private school anyway. Other than that, the weather, the culture and the apparent quality of life for middle class folks are very appealing to me. I’d like to be sure there’s not a major thing I’m overlooking though…

Well, there is the whole, ‘erosion’ thing and increasing storms and floods and the fact that NOLA is blocked in with no real good escape routes past a certain time. So… there is that.

I’ve been there in mid-summer for conventions – 2 or 3 days at a time. Brutal heat and humidity.

100% temps with 95% humidity (or maybe it was the opposite). You take a step outside and you are drenched with sweat.

It’s a great place to visit, but live there? no thank you.

I have a friend who moved back there a few years ago, because she missed it. We grew up in the DC metro area in Maryland, I’m pretty sure she lived in NYC for a while too. I wasn’t in touch with her for many years, so I don’t know her whole story regarding where she has lived. I know she really likes living in NOLA. I think she is in the theatre scene there.

She doesn’t have children. I think you need to feel really comfortable about how your kids will grow up. I don’t know NOLA well, so I can’t comment on that, but I know when I lived in Memphis I had reservations about raising children there. We really liked it there, and had great friends, but some things would have bothered me if we had had kids.