My feeling is if you don't have the money to live in the type of niegborhood you like,don't have a job you like, don't have the home life and self content you want, no city will please you. I think not being able to earn enough money is a large problem for a lot of people in NOLA. i haven't live there in 15 yrs.Not many cities have a downtown and french quarter type places to stroll, most of the year, if you are bored. The city has a lake front, a large river front, but nice nieghborhood parks and basketball gyms are too scarce. I guess it just depends on your pocketbook power and also your experiences help to evaluate a prospective place . I've live in Chicago, it has bigger hoods and bigger crime in the bigger hoods;also it has bigger nice neighborhoods too.If you can afford it.Same with NOLA, if you can afford it you can have a decent life there.i think it is a nice place to retire. Correct me if I'm wrong haven't lived there in 15 years.
Harold | New York, NY | Report Abuse

I hope you're right Derek. I've been there twice, once for the Jazz Fest 2005. I LOVE it. If I had the money to restore one of those mansions in the Garden District, I would do it tomorrow! A single woman, I was hesitant to go to Bourbon Street alone, but I did. I was fortunate to meet a gentleman that shared the entire evening with me visiting almost every bar and taking in the sounds and the excitement. What an inspiring place to be for the soul! I was hearbroken when I saw what Katrina did and learned the selfish reasons why. New Oleans has my heart and always will. I wanted to do the Jazz Fest this weekend, but circumstances didn't allow me. Once again, I hope the ambience and magic of that town stays alive as well as the quaintness it once possessed. The vagrants that cause the crime should only know how they rape and scar the beauty of that town. One must learn to see the forest for the trees. "How like a dream is this I see and hear!" - Two gentlemen of Verona
Lorraine | Massapequa, NY | Report Abuse