Recommended areas for young professionals to live? (New Orleans, Metairie: apartments, rentals)

[MichaelTr]

I am looking for an area town that my wife and I could rent an apartment from in NOLA. Could someone offer suggestions? Things that are important to us are as follows:

-Must be within 45 minutes of Slidell, where I will work
-Must have a moderate degree of safety
-Would ideally like to have access to a pool
-Would ideally like to be able to walk to grocery store, haircut place, and a restaurant and/or coffee shop, and/or clubs.

Our budget is $1000/mo or under.

Can anyone offer any suggestions?

[iColt1]

Hmm i would of said Mountain Home, Arkansas but i think that is to far away!!! (and idk where slidell is)

[miserylovesco.]

Look uptown in the university area if that's your price range.

[jbanana14]

you could also try the central business district. there used to be a lot of apartments on julia st, they may have been converted to condos. there is a easy freeway access and it is only 30 minutes to slidell and you are going against the commute

[SouthernBelleInUtah]

There is NOTHING liveable in New Orleans East, so forget about that. You have to be on the downtown side of the Industrial Canal and even then, I'd go further to be safe. Rents are very high in N.O. since Katrina. For ex, the house in old Metairie next to my son't house is small and not very fixed up. It rents for $1200 per side. It's a safe area and you could walk a few blocks to a small shopping area. But not sure about 45 min to Slidell.

I think your best bet will be to loook in Mandeville and Covington or even Slidell itself.

[Puddinhead]

Originally Posted by SouthernBelleInUtah

There is NOTHING liveable in New Orleans East, so forget about that. You have to be on the downtown side of the Industrial Canal and even then, I'd go further to be safe. Rents are very high in N.O. since Katrina. For ex, the house in old Metairie next to my son't house is small and not very fixed up. It rents for $1200 per side. It's a safe area and you could walk a few blocks to a small shopping area. But not sure about 45 min to Slidell.

I think your best bet will be to loook in Mandeville and Covington or even Slidell itself.

Yet another explanation of how things currently stand in NOLA, delivered by someone with their finger firmly on the pulse of the town...from Salt Lake City. No offense intended, but one day I'd love to hear just what constitutes "liveable" by Utah definition...LOL.

Eastover, McKendall Estates, Lexington Estates, Spring Lake, Castle Manor, Village de L'Est...no, not nearly every house in these and other middle class NO East neighborhoods is renovated, but I think you'd get some argument from those more-than-you-probably-realize folks who are back into these areas that there is "NOTHING livable" in New Orleans East. Too many people ride through the East on the interstate and see the blight that has really always been right on either side of the highway and never bother to find out about the neighborhoods AWAY from I-10. Of course, sadly, there's also the assumption by many that "predominantly African-American"="slums"...which is not an idea you'd come up with if you've driven down Bullard between the Chef and I-10 in the past 8-10 years.

All that being said...as far as the RENTAL market goes in NO East, it's a more legitimate point. There aren't nearly the number of available rental units as there were pre-Katrina, and even then the rentals were certainly mostly clustered in the less-desirable neighborhoods.

The CBD suggestion makes sense for young professionals, in the heart of everything "urban"...but I'm not sure you can touch something there in your price range right now. Maybe...CBD and Warehouse district would be both right in the middle of things and have easy access to the Interstate heading east. University section is of course nice, but for being right in the middle of NOLA a lot of Uptown neighborhoods are really kind of isolated when it comes to getting to and from non-Uptown parts of the region. You can get around in Uptown itself fine, but there's no interstate access, for example, until you get back to the CBD, out to MidCity, or out to Metairie. THEN you'd start your commute to Slidell from there. Uptown residents can surely speak more authoritatively about this, but I'm not sure you make it to Slidell from Uptown regularly in 45 minutes.

Mid-City is an option; I don't know rental rates now, but you might be able to find a half a double to rent in your range off Canal as you're getting near the Cemetaries (you'll learn how we define "place" in NOLA in short order...usually everything's based on the River, the Lake, and Canal Street.), and interstate access isn't too bad of an issue.

There's always my part of town...Gentilly. It's a vast and varied area, with all sorts of diverse neighborhoods. I'm in Gentilly Terrace, and I know for example that they are currently a number of rentals open, including the one diagonally across the corner from me. The pros for this location include being really centrally located; French Quarter and downtown is about 15 minutes down Elysian Fields, UNO (which has a fitness club that I know is open to the public by membership) is like 5 minutes in the other direction, Metairie about 20 minutes, and, of interest to you, Slidell is about 35 minutes or so.

Anyway, that's if you want to live in New Orleans. If you want to live like you're living in anywhere else in America, there's plenty of really nice subdivisions on the North Shore.

[SouthernBelleInUtah]

Originally Posted by Puddinhead

Yet another explanation of how things currently stand in NOLA, delivered by someone with their finger firmly on the pulse of the town...from Salt Lake City. No offense intended, but one day I'd love to hear just what constitutes "liveable" by Utah definition...LOL.

...............

SInce I was born there, lived most of my 66 yrs there, have family/friends there, and am back to N.O. every 2 months, I'd say I do know something about N.O. As it happens, I just left N.O. 3 days ago.

I concede your point about N.O. East areas off the interstate. I used to work out there but haven't been into the area since about 1 yr after Katrina.

[miserylovesco.]

I could never live on the North shore...too far from everything.

[NOLAman]

I'd say uptown (st. charles ave., prytania st, magazine st.) is pretty good, the riverbend/ university area uptown is good too. Midcity is nice too especially around City Park. Algiers Point is nice and often left out (but its on the Westbank and only a ferry ride to downtown). The Faubourg Marigny is nice and is pretty jumping on the weekends (and some week days), but under $1000 I think you'll get a closet.

my 2 cents

[Puddinhead]

Originally Posted by SouthernBelleInUtah

SInce I was born there, lived most of my 66 yrs there, have family/friends there, and am back to N.O. every 2 months, I'd say I do know something about N.O. As it happens, I just left N.O. 3 days ago.

I concede your point about N.O. East areas off the interstate. I used to work out there but haven't been into the area since about 1 yr after Katrina.

Rode down Bullard and Lake Forest Blvds. this weekend; I certainly couldn't afford to live in several of the neighborhoods I passed.