Baton Rouge? (Lafayette: dangerous, cars, rated)

[annie_himself]

True, try walking around Sherwood, the bottom, and Gardere. You can get hemmed up in any hood in any city, just depends on the day. A white friend of mine was nearly murdered on Gardere, outside of his apartment door, about a month ago.

[MetroBTR]

These people can take their street smarts straight to La Margie Avenue or Byron Street and see what happens.

[WhoDat2011]

According to the 2010 census here are the population totals:

New Orleans- 315,283
Baton Rouge- 224,722

I've seen higher population totals for both cities for the census, but overall New Orleans is still considerably larger than Baton Rouge.

Have a blessed day in the Lord.

Originally Posted by CindyM

Care to back that up with facts?

[WestbankNOLA]

Baton Rouge
City: 229,553
Metro: 802,484

New Orleans
City: 343,829
Metro: 1.17 million

Thanks to growth in BR and the effects of Katrina, the gap between the two has definitely shortened. It'll be interesting to see if that trend continues in the next 5 years.

[annie_himself]

I could see Baton Rouge getting to 1.3m in my lifetime but I'm young. If New Orleans was going to stay stagnant, I think BR would have really closed the gap or surpassed it.

[threadweaver]

I moved here from southeastern pennsylvania. After the great north of the mid-atlantic I can say that the weather sucks just a little more than southern PA. Here people enjoy the air conditioning in the summer but get 9 months of not so bad weather. Given that its hot and muggy in PA in the summer 80-90 degrees plus cold and snowy in the winter, I think Baton rouge gets an extra four months of goodness!

I agree that you have to pick your neighborhoods and schools, but really life has gotten a lot better here as the Katrina migrations worked themselves out. The new neighborhoods out I-12 and I10 are safe and attractive. Shopping is great -not as unlimited as the NE corridor, but there's a lot going on. Plenty of restaurants to choose from ranging from traditional chains to local louisiana fare with crab boils to outstanding Thai and Indian restaurants. It's got an active enough nightlife -and there's always new orleans. I've found fun people in Baton Rouge at events like "Stabbed in the Art", "live after Five" and the sunday music in the park events. Mardi Gras parades go on for a month and they are great fun for the family. If you want crazy mardi gras, drive an hour away to New Orleans any time you want. There's a local Buddhist temple, a huge unitarian church even a local pagan group, so you don't have to worry that its "too conservative" . You can find anything you want here, not a dozen different things or places, but a couple of each.

There are some great magnet schools for the kids, tubing, a water park, lots of outdoor stuff and of course movie theaters, lots of movie theaters.

Career-wise, its good. air travel out of Baton Rouge and NOLA make it easy to jump around, but truthfully nothing beats the north east megalopolis. Again its like you can find what you need but its a smaller place than Phildadelphia or Baltimore. No public transportation to speak of, though there are cabs and buses.

Housing is cheaper than the north, lower property taxes. -Lower taxes generally. I think utilitiesare about half what they were in PA.

Best of luck...

[things and stuff]

threadweaver, how's wages compare?

[ntafan16]

Wages in BR are a lot lower than elsewhere for similar jobs. So you have the lower cost of housing, but other than that, I don't see much of a COL difference to most places in the US (save for NYC, SF, DC). Airfare out of BR is significantly higher to major cities than from a major city because the flight availability is much lower. Gas prices are about the same per gallon, insurance is actually far higher.

BR has a lot of job creation, but it ranks low in terms of skilled labor jobs (as reported in The Advocate). Most new jobs being created are minimum wage service industry restaurant jobs.

You will probably spend a lot more on gas because of a few factors. The road system is abysmal so traffic is worse than most places in the US. The only reason commute times are lower is because BR is a smaller city than a place like LA. It's not uncommon to wait 10 minutes at a light because there is no left turn signal/lane. This burns gas; a lot of it. There is no solid public transit. A lot of areas don't have sidewalks so you pretty much have to drive several blocks to the store.

There is also no synchronized light system like in most cities. This means you have to wait the entire interval at the light until it changes even if no cars are coming the other way (also burns a ton of gas).

The nightlife is there, but if you are used to the well kept nightclubs and lounge bars of the NE or Midwest, you won't find that in BR. It is more sports bars (but not Bronx style---due to the country theme) and restaurants that serve as watering holes. There are some nicer places, but they are spread far out (downtown and Perkins Rowe are far apart).

If you like Louisiana food, there are tons of those restaurants. Not my kind of food, but heard most are good. Lots of Asian restaurants too, quality varies. Lots of chain restaurants. Lots of fast food. People tout the local BR MExican food; I found that it would be equivalent to eating Crawfish in NYC if that tells you something. Same with the Italian and Greek food. Very subpar, but that's expected in Louisiana. No NE style delis to speak of (Jewish or Italian). Tough to get a good bagel.

BR has a lot of lifers going back generations. Very small immigrant populations from both outside the US and within the US, save for a lot of rural folks moving to the big city for school (LSU) or more job availability.

[ntafan16]

Been there done that, many times waiting for the cars to turn left.

[trafficsucks]

Originally Posted by ntafan16

Been there done that, many times waiting for the cars to turn left.

Sure you have. I too wait 10 minutes at a intersection all the time.

Sure.