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Deciding between these three cities for grad school. How do they compare as places to live for young adults/professionals? Important factors:
Entertainment options (bars, concerts, festivals, etc.)
Interesting, fairly walkable neighborhoods
Job opportunities/economic strength
Concentration of educated young people
Diversity and progressive culture
[quote=magnoliashorty;50828368]Deciding between these three cities for grad school. How do they compare as places to live for young adults/professionals? Important factors:
Entertainment options (bars, concerts, festivals, etc.)...Nashville or New Orleans are on top are sort of designed around these things but St. Louis has a lot of options too.
Interesting, fairly walkable neighborhoods...New Orleans and St. Louis
Job opportunities/economic strength...Nashville, although IME St. Louis has a strong job market for the educated. It suffered more in blue collar/factory jobs
Concentration of educated young people...Nashville and St. Louis
Diversity and progressive culture...St.Louis...Nashville/New Orleans. Not a big enough difference to be a factor.
Personally I’d pick the best program because all 3 cities would be great in their own way.
I live in St Louis, visit Nashville several times a year only visited new Orleans a few times.
Entertainment options: St Louis has the second highest concentration of Bars per capita. St Louis and New Orleans has a great amount of culture. St. Louis has Forest Park (History Museum, Zoo, Art Museum, Science Center and the MUNY theater) all are free attractions and world class. Nashville and New Orleans seem to have a better collection of festivals than St Louis. Nashville was listed as one of the most eventful cities in the country based up on number of venues and bookings.
I don't know about NO, but St Louis is a city built around the neighborhood. Each one has its own identity like The Hill Italian food, Central West End is medical and innovations startups, The Grove lgbt nightlife and so on and they are all walkable. STL also is the most connected of the three. 40+ miles of LRT connecting universities to airport to business districts.
Nashville is the fastest growing city and lowest unemployment rate. St. Louis has a lower unemployment rate than NO and a narrow margin higher than Nashville. St. Louis has the largest economy with the most fortune 500 companies and most economic diversity of the three.
Concentration of young educated people are all about the same. Nashville is more transient and has an it status.
Ethnic diversity goes to Nashville though I don't see as much progressive culture (lgbt issues as an example)
Based on your criteria:
Entertainment options- New Orleans has almost if not all of what you’re looking for and of course it’s a more let loose environment. Marks Gras, Jazz fest, voodoo fest, Essence Fest, Bourbon street, Frenchman st. etc something always going on.
Fairly walkable neighborhoods- New Orleans is very walkable and is known for being more urban than cities twice it’s size. Not sure how much more walkable it is in comparison to the other two.
Economy/job opportunities- Nashville probably. But I guess it depends what career you’re trying to get into.
Diversity/Progressive - All of these cities are in red states but New Orleans is very blue politically. Diversity is celebrated and the city is a melting pot of different cultures notable its creole, Spanish and French influences. The food is awesome the atmosphere is very live and let live.
I skipped concentration of educated people/young professionals. In the city there is Tulane, Xavier, SUNO, etc. New Orleans is smaller than the other two cities so naturally they should have more but I think New Orleans is a good balance. There have been an influx of young people moving over the past couple of years.
I would check out the New Orleans forum for more info on neighborhoods.
Nashville all the way.Its got the the industry,the nightlife,relative cost of living and growth that the other cities lack.
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