I have a job prospect in New Orleans. An offer has been made pending award of the contract.

I have always wanted to visit the city but not sure about living there.

Contract would be with the Navy right next to the Univeristy of NO.

The idea would be to rent in NO while keeping our home in PA. If someone could give me an idea of safer places to live with a reasonable commute (40 min or less) to the office, I would appreciate it.

To get it out of the way. I love cajun food. At 47 not much of a partier so I don't care about a vibrant night life. Just the wife, the Rottweiler and I so school district makes not difference. Would prefer an area good for the dog.

I have my PA CCW and am curious what the laws are like in NO.

Thanks in advance.

The big easy Can be a fun place to live, more like a Caribbean city at times. Its low key compared to most southern cities & not without its downsides. There’s the heat and humidity, of course. Never a dull moment finding good eats! The crime rates can be a little scary. Make sure your nightstand gun has a light mounted Check out the Algiers Pt and Irish channel areas are good places to start that won’t break the bank.

I have, as is usual, little to offer on anything but food. Make sure you go by and eat at Kenner Seafood in Kenner. You can get a "boat," which is a huge loaf of bread canoed out, lined with fries, then your choice of fried shrimp, oysters, and fish, or any combo of the above, for around $19ish. Feeds two corn fed Mississippi boys easily.

You're welcome.

If you're ok with that commute time I would encourage you to look at living on the northshore across the lake (Mandeville) and commute across the causeway. Much safer place to reside. If you do decide to live closer to the city Metarie would probably be your best bet.

NO has the best food anywhere, and there's always festivals and live music. You won't be bored living there for sure.

If you hurry, the Jazz Fest is April 27. Here's the lineup: Lineup

Mandeville is 48 minutes from SPAWAR.

I went to Tulane, and was just there two weeks ago. Some of my college friends are raising their families there. If you are in New Orleans, uptown is probably the best bet. The neighborhoods do change quickly though in terms of safety. Garden District or near Tulane is probably good. All close enough to UNO.

Agree with previous poster that north shore may be a good bet, as UNO is on or close to the south shore of the lake.

Otherwise, perhaps Metarie could be a good choice. It's more of a normal place in terms of living, but close enough to NOLA to take advantage of the city.

get flood insurance.

A fantastic fun place is some areas, a third world country in others. Great people, corrupt as Chicago with the government. A much smaller city than it used to be, Katrina culled out a lot of the bad and moved it to Houston and Baton Rouge.

Most of the suburbs are fine. Covington/Mandeville seem a bit far away. River Ridge is nice but I have heard crime is starting to tick up. Destrehan has good schools etc...

I don’t live there, but I have relatives that do. I do go there a bit. I have a love/hate relationship with that city.

A cool thing to do to familiarize yourself with the city it you want a nice lazy day is to ride the trains throughout the city. Talk to the people on the trains. There are your typical big city folks that don’t want to talk, but mostly there are super friendly people with very vibrant personalities that love 3 things, The city, the Saints, and LSU.

You might want to pick up a dictionary so you can converse with the coonass's

As far as a seafood eatery, the Harbor House in Kenner La. is to die for. I used to live in Kenner, and NO many years ago.

Never, ever, step in a puddle on the sidewalk in The Big Easy.

I lived in Metarie. But that was in 1964.

Seriously, I think it is still a decent 'burb.

I think I would agree with what Tigereye stated. Mandeville or even Covington would be very safe places to live. The toll coming across the Causeway is up to $5 now. You only pay the toll when going to the south shore. I don't know how much a toll tag would cost. The Mandeville area is great if you love pine trees. They're everywhere!

I grew up in Metairie. There are a lot of good areas to live there as well.

Trying to pick a good place to live in New Orleans could be difficult, there are a lot of rally bad areas. I think one of the safest areas in New Orleans would be the Lakeview area. It's right next to Metairie and City Park.

I'm a UNO grad. If I'm not mistaken the Navy site is where Pontchartrain beach amusement park used to be.

Great food, music, festivals, culture and history. Most people are open and friendly. Laid back southern attitude. I was talking with a restaurant owner on my last visit and he described NOLA as the "Paris of the south".
Sounded accurate.
Traffic is crazy. Roads are awful. Crime is common. Heat and humidity.
My kid lived in Metarie. Quadruple homicide within walking distance of his apartment. He moved into NOLA on Palmetto St. And.... Double homicide near him in his apartment complex. If I had to live there, it would be on the north shore in Mandeville. And the causeway can close quite a bit. Would I live there? I have considered it, since I would like to be closer to my kid. But I need to research the south shore more.
Anyone in in Kenner? How is it?

The wife and I lived in Kenner a couple of years before we bought our house in Destrehan. We had no complaints back then.

Kenner is basically Metairie west as the two sit side by side. Kenner is a city though with it's own police force. It does have a few good communities but there are some that should be avoided completely.

I don't know any crime statistics for the city but I'd have a hard time believing it's safer than before hurricane Katrina. The storm attracted a lot of illegal aliens. I do spend a lot of time either going through or working in Kenner. It seems to me there is a higher percentage of illegals in Kenner than anywhere else in the New Orleans area.

If you're a democrat you'll love it. NOPD makes up their own laws. Watch the local news online and see how wonderful it is.

Live north of the lake. If you become a La resident you'll have to get a LA Concealed Handgun Permit if you want to CC. If you have your receipts for your guns make copies and carry them with you NOPD is kind of crazy about that. It's not a law but that's just the way they operate. Good luck and be safe.

I’m a lifelong resident of the area and choose to live in Jefferson Parish instead of Orleans Parish. I know you’re planning to rent, but as a homeowner, I wasn’t too keen on idea of paying higher property taxes and taxes in general for poorer services. NOPD response times are atrocious due to serious understaffing, many roads are in poor condition, traffic cams are rampant, and small scale flooding occurs more frequently than I think is acceptable. Jefferson Parish, however, is enjoying some of the lowest rates of crime in years and is almost a polar opposite of how I described New Orleans.

I know someone mentioned that crime is rising in River Ridge according to some relatives that live there, but I’ve lived in River Ridge (unincorporated Jefferson Parish) for years and now am a homeowner in Harahan (incorporated town adjacent to it) and I haven’t seen that trend. Harahan was declared safest city in Louisiana according to crime statistics in 2016 & 2017.

Other areas in Jeff Parish I’d consider living that has easy access to the UNO Lakefront area are: Bucktown, Old Metairie, And Kenner. If you don’t mind the 30-minute commute and tolls everyday, then the Northshore is also very nice and safe. If considering the Westbank (across the Mississippi River), I’d consider Old Gretna. There’s a sliver of New Orleans on the Westbank called Algiers but everyone treats it as the redheaded stepchild by both Orleans Parish and Jeff Parish. When you hear about crime in the Westbank, it’s usually in Algiers.

If you’d be ok with Orleans Parish, I really like the Lakefront area and it’ll be very close to your work. Trendy areas right now include Marigny, Irish Channel, Bywater, and Mid-City.

In terms of life in the area, there’s a certain joie de vivre about the residents that I haven’t encountered elsewhere in my limited travels. The people are the best I know and the food never leaves me wanting. We’re in festival season right now and there’s just an air of happiness percolating everywhere. Yes, it can get hot, humid, muggy, and it rains a lot, but just like any other climate, you just learn to live with it.

If you come down for a looksee, email me and beers are on me—as long as you don’t drink like a fish.

Although he has been deceased for a number of years, this article will give you an idea of the cast of characters. The last time I saw Sheriff Harry Lee, he was singing a duet with Willie Nelson of a Julio Iglesis tune. Though gone now, this article from 2006 is an apt discription.

Larger-Than-Life Sheriff Rules Louisiana Parish
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November 28, 200611:52 AM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
John Burnett
JOHN BURNETT

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Harry Lee, the outspoken and flamboyant Chinese-American sheriff of Louisiana's Jefferson Parish, has been a lightning rod for controversy during his 26 years in office.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office

Harry Lee appears with former Rep. Lindy Boggs in Lafitte, La. Her late husband, former House Majority Leader Hale Boggs, was Lee's mentor.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office

A papier-mache model of Lee's face was a decoration at his recent birthday bash, an annual event known as the Chinese Cajun Cowboy Fais Do Do.
John Burnett, NPR
There's nobody quite like Harry Lee.

He's the flamboyant and outspoken sheriff of Louisiana's Jefferson Parish, a sprawling suburb that borders New Orleans. The Chinese-American lawman, now in his seventh term in office, has a penchant for putting his foot in his mouth, but it only seems to increase his popularity.

The 74-year-old, 300-pound sheriff — down from 400 pounds, he proudly points out — sits at his desk surrounded by his large gun collection.

"I'm still as full of piss and vinegar as I was 20 years ago," he says.

For 26 years, Lee has been the top cop and chief taxing authority of the booming jurisdiction of nearly half a million people, and because of peculiar state law, there's little oversight.

"The sheriff of [Jefferson Parish] is the closest thing there is to being a king in the U.S. I have no unions, I don't have civil service, I hire and fire at will. I don't have to go to council and propose a budget. I approve the budget. I'm the head of the law-enforcement district, and the law-enforcement district only has one vote, which is me," he says.

Columnist James Gill of the Times-Picayune in New Orleans has written often over the years about the sheriff.

"He's a great character, everyone likes him. Some people fear him. He can be sheriff of Jefferson Parish for as long as he wants. Harry Lee has always been a law unto himself," Gill says.

Lee is a former restaurant and tavern owner, former federal magistrate, and former protege of the late U.S. House Majority Leader Hale Boggs. In Jefferson Parish, Lee is well known for his personal Mardi Gras float; outside the parish, he's famous for his mouth.

Twenty years ago, after a rash of robberies by black men of white residents in their driveways, Lee vowed to stop and question blacks driving "rinky-dink cars" in white neighborhoods. The NAACP called on him to resign. Lee called a press conference the next day and said his plan was a mistake.

Late last month, it happened again. An offhand comment to a TV reporter created a new controversy.

"We know the crime is in the black community. Why should I waste time in the white community?" Lee was quoted as saying.

Since Hurricane Katrina, murders in Jefferson Parish have doubled, the majority of them black-on-black killings. The sheriff tried, in vain, to explain his intended get-tough tactics the next day at a press conference inside his gray, fortress-like headquarters.

"We know where the problem areas are. If we see some black guys on the corner milling around, we would confront them," he said.

The president of the regional NAACP, Donatus King, wasn't buying it.

"Confronting a group of black people on the street corner merely because they're black and milling around is a form of racial profiling. The NAACP opposes that tactic," King said.

Under pressure, the sheriff said his deputies would not be indiscriminately frisking African-American males.

A few days later, the Times-Picayune ran an unscientific poll. The phone calls ran 22 for the NAACP, 789 for Harry Lee.

More recently, Lee says he wants to patrol dangerous neighborhoods in armored vehicles.

Jefferson Parish is overwhelmingly white. In 1989, the parish elected David Duke — the former Ku Klux Klan leader — to be its state representative.

Lee is lauded for keeping crime low, which means, to most people, keeping black criminals under control, says columnist James Gill, who lives in the parish.

"This parish grew largely as a result of white flight, and it retains some of that feel of the 1950s today in its attitudes," Gill says. "And Harry's popularity depends, to some extent, on the perception that he is a white man's champion, he is holding back the black hordes that might otherwise threaten suburban bliss."

From a distance, it's tempting to pigeonhole Harry Lee as a racist Southern sheriff. But up close, he's more complex.

Angela St. Hill is an African-American resident of Jefferson Parish. As a lay worker on social justice issues with her Catholic church, she's worked with Harry Lee. She says that although he may sound racist at times, Lee has a good reputation of trying to solve problems in the black community.

"The African-American community knows that most of the time, he's doing the right things for right reasons, even though his words may not show that," St. Hill says.

"Unfortunately, I think he talks a lot before he thinks about what he's saying."

Harry Lee — the son of Lee and Yip Shee Bing, owners of a New Orleans laundry — shrugs off the criticism.

"It's more difficult for somebody to accuse me of being a racist, when you figure I was born in the back room of a Chinese laundry. When I was a kid, I was called a 'chink,'" he says.

Today, Lee has perhaps the highest approval ratings of any politician in the state. Every year, he throws a birthday party for himself at the Hilton Riverside Hotel in downtown New Orleans. Now that former Gov. Edwin Edwards is in prison, Lee's Chinese Cajun Cowboy Fais Do Do is the last great political party in Louisiana.

Five-thousand people pay $100 each to listen to two bands, drink prodigiously, and gorge on gumbo and egg rolls. Lee raises several hundred-thousand dollars, with which he funds his re-election campaigns, and gives the rest to charity.

And in the ballroom entrance: a huge papier-mache head in the likeness of the sheriff, surrounded by piles of fortune cookies.

Related NPR Stories
Flamboyant Sheriff Harry Lee, Dead at 75Oct. 2, 2007
What Happened on New Orleans' Danziger Bridge?Sept. 13, 2006

RIP Harry Lee. You’re very much missed!

Be sure to try a fried oyster po boy.