Not worth any job to move here
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8/2/2007
I hate to write a review that is solely negative, since so many people write nothing but boo-hiss-boo-hiss on here, so I'm going to include the best stuff I can think of as well.
The Pros:
Fishing and hunting are excellent here, though you will probably need a boat to do much serious fishing. There are some areas where you can hike, but none that are within an hour of town. Bird watching is excellent as well. There is nothing extraordinary about seeing snowy egrets in your backyard, or watching flocks of pelicans swim around a lake. If you are able to stand the heat, you can be outdoors for the entire year, as it rarely drops below the 40's. It's a great place for gardening, you can grow lots of subtropical plants and there is a long vegetable growing season.
The local NPR is consistently rated as one of the best in the nation.
There is a very active sports fanbase here, centered around the LSU Tigers.
The Cons:
To all of the people who have posted about Katrina ruining a lovely place to live, I have to disagree. The hurricane just exacerbated the numerous problems that already plagued the city.
Crime is terrible, plain and simple. The low cost of living is offset by things like ridiculous auto insurance premiums due to fraud (mine was $2000 higher per year.)
There is a climate of open racism going in both directions between blacks and whites that has led to the utter collapse of the public school system and virtually every person who can afford it (and many who can't) putting their kids into private school. If you have children and cannot afford private school, don't move here. It's a tremendous disservice to them. (Some of the suburbs have decent to excellent public schools, check them out instead if you are being forced to move to the area.) As a teacher at a private school, I fought a constant negative attitude towards education among my rich, white students; if half of what my public school counterparts told me was true, it's a frightening place to raise a kid.
Traffic is awful, largely due to the city's origins. Because it was built on a swamp, the city's parts were not necessarily directly accessible to one another when they were populated. This has led to a great many roads in the town that really don't lead anywhere. Over time, these have started to be reconnected, but it's still a huge mess, especially following the population boom.
Jason | Fort Wayne, IN