Fresh Blood Needed
So, a friend of mine is moving down here from Chicago in a couple of weeks. She has only visited here once, and that was about a month ago. She has no job lined up but plans to take some classes at UNO or Delgado. The common reaction to this news is “what, is she out of her goddamned mind?” I suppose that’s a valid question. After all, who moves from a perfectly functional, safe, cosmopolitan city to the broken post-apocalyptic nightmarish hellhole that we call home–IN AUGUST, no less?! Well, I don’t know. She wants to escape the winters, which was my impetus for moving here 4 years ago; but certainly there are other cities that have warm weather and aren’t, you know, on the constant brink of societal meltdown.
The more I think about it, I realize that her decision is a good one, and one that more people should certainly consider. The city desperately needs more people like her- educated, able to work, not tied down by children or family obligations, and not dependent on healthcare or welfare systems. I feel this is a choice that more people would be making if housing was not in such short supply here. Furthermore I think people like her, who have little to no realization of how things were before last September, are more likely to accept the fucked up state of things as being normal. Not that we should accept fucked up things as normal, but I know it would make my life a lot easier if I thought things like four way stop signs were just the norm and not another reminder of how the city can’t get its shit together enough to fix a bunch of traffic lights.
So I am calling single, smart, adventurous, hard working (well, just working) souls worldwide: consider moving here. I’m serious. We need you. You’ll be rewarded with drink, culture, food, drink, and stories that will last you a lifetime. Come find out why miserable people like us metrobloggers are so drawn to the city that we can’t fathom moving away, despite the advice of everyone else in the country.
Related posts:
Chris,
Being the literal posterboy for the young and educated who wanted to stay pre-katrina (See this.), moving away, and coming back post-K to leave soon again, I ask you the following questions on behalf of those you appeal to:
1. Considering the lack of economic opportunities for young people without serious capital, the shortage of housing, the associated rising cost of living, the lack of political leadership, the returning crime, and many other everyday social irregularities indicated on this blog and elsewhere: Why should any young person move to New Orleans beyond the sake of charity?
2. How would these reasons compare to places like the obvious NOLA alternative, Austin? San Diego, Chicago, DC, Portland, Seattle??
I’m not saying you’re right or wrong - I just think “drink, culture, food, drink, and stories that will last you a lifetime” isn’t a good enough reason for most young people.
Festivals, restaurants, and bars can be a great attraction but also a constant reminder of your economic burden when you don’t have the money to enjoy them.
Speaking as a person who grew up here, moved away after high school, and just moved back after 20+ years (14 of them in Austin), I think it’s a great idea.
If you’re young and you’re single and you’re childless, then you have flexibility. You have nothing to lose. If it doesn’t work out here, then you can go back where you came from, or you can go someplace like Austin or Portland or Seattle or San Francisco or DC, where you will find the same issues with insanely high cost of living combined with few real opportunities for people without college degrees.
Myself, I couldn’t live anywhere else than New Orleans right now, and I think we should be encouraging energetic people to move here as much as possible.
I have to agree with Chris on this one. It’s really the same logic I used to buy my house after the storm. Economic opportunity limitations and housing shortages, et al, are a concern, but, single, unencumbered people are more agile. Without kids and a spouse, you can ‘just get by’ in ways that you would never subject your children or anyone you love to. If I were married, I certainly couldn’t expect my wife to live in the conditions I’ve been living in for the last few months - though, I must say, any chick willing to live like that and consider it a big adventure would be a sign I married the right person. And if I had kids that lived with me, well, that would be just wrong.
So I think, if you’re say, mid 20’s to mid 30’s with no kids, no spouse and a particularly odd sense of adventure, forego that trip to Africa and just come down here and help me shoo the flies off my poochy-belly instead.
As a young person about to move to New Orleans, I can assure you that charity is certainly not the only reason for relocating. As far as I have seen, yours is the most exciting city in the country. Of course there will be headaches, but Chicago resembles a collsion between Walmart, NYC, and LA more each day. Every small business is my neighborhood is turning into a condo, and no one seems to mind. It becomes duller by the day, and I have no doubt the same is true of the other cities mentioned. If culture and unforgettable life experiences are not motivations for other young people it may be that they think like old people.
You make the assumption, I think incorrectly, that there are places *like* New Orleans. You can make a living somewhere else, but it’ll never be New Orleans. That’s the rub.
… replying to Chris.
Responses:
>Ray: “If it doesn’t work out here, then you can >go back where you came from, or you can go >someplace like Austin or Portland or Seattle or >San Francisco or DC, where you will find the same >issues with insanely high cost of living combined >with few real opportunities for people without >college degrees.”
You’ve addressed the issue of non-college educated people not having opportunities - here, as the brain drain has always existed pre and post-K, even college educated people (forget the people without college degrees) have historically not been able to find professional jobs.
>Sarah: If culture and unforgettable life >experiences are not motivations for other young >people it may be that they think like old people.
Culture and unforgettable life experiences are not localized to New Orleans alone. As a young person, no one has given a marginally appealing reason yet…
>Schroeder: You make the assumption, I think >incorrectly, that there are places *like* New >Orleans. You can make a living somewhere else, >but it’ll never be New Orleans. That’s the rub
New Orleans is certainly unique - an fact when talking about jobs leads to the trap of tourism and associated infastructure that we’ve learned the hard way after September 11th and Katrina, is not sustainable. You can make a living somewhere else but can you actually make one in New Orleans?
C’mon people - give me some answers!
Mike, I think the point that everyone is trying to make is that not everyone necessarily wants a professional job. Jobs are plentiful here, in the service industry, certain retail positions, not to mention the wealth of skilled and unskilled trade jobs that the rebuilding process has made available. Painting houses doesn’t take a college degree but you could sure make a killing at it down here right now. Youth is all about taking risks and being adventurous, and frankly I can’t think of a more rewarding place to do so. As for the housing situation, sure you can’t get a huge place for next to nothing anymore, but if you’re willing to have a few roommates there’s no reason anyone couldn’t scrape by on a bartender’s salary here.
I’d guess that very few people who just spent six figures on an education with debt to pay off accordingly would want to paint houses unless they were doing Peace Corp or Americorps work - something that looked better on paper. I don’t see the workers on Lee Circle being rivaled by the college crowd any time soon.
The point I was trying to lead people to was the same thing I’ve always espoused before Katrina: Our local government needs to take the initiative to provide sustainable industry.
What no one has pointed out yet was that there has always been young, educated people in New Orleans and the clear majority have always left. This is not a new problem. No one educated in their right mind wants to “scrape by on a bartender’s salary”.
Nagin criticized our federal government for thinking small during the crisis. I think that’s something everyone in this city is guilty of.
My wife is making a good living here. I’m making a good living here. Between the two of us we have four college degrees.
I understand your frustation in not being able to find a job that utilizes your degree in finance, and I’ll be the last person to cheerlead for what a wonderful economy we have here, but please understand that both your experience and my experience are very narrow slices of reality, and neither should be taken by themselves as a reason for somebody who wants to move here to reconsider.
Again, a single childless person has lots of flexbility to find out for *herself* whether living here is worth it, and to move away if it doesn’t work out.
I grok the beef with city leadership around building sustainable industry. But I don’t see how crying “it sucks, don’t move here!” to every newcomer is a helpful step in the right direction. I think for somebody who is enthusiastic about the city, this is a great time to try it out and see and maybe contribute to building a better New Orleans.
And having grown up in Boston and New Orleans, and lived in Houston, San Francisco, and Austin, I can tell you that New Orleans truly is unique as an American city. There are experiences here that you can have nowhere else, and if you think I’m just talking about the food and the partying, then maybe you lived in a different New Orleans than I do.
Free Boobs on Mardi Gras Day!!
Is it still legal for me to flash for a plastic flower?
Laurie
I have three college degress (well, 2.75 - dissertation in process) and I would have no problem painting houses for a living or bartending- hell, a good bartending job beats the hell out of teaching spoiled frat rats any day - pay and other wise. I’m not eligible for Americorps, but that wouldn’t stop me from taking a job gutting houses, or laying tile or whatever. I *like* doing things with my hands, as does my college-educated husband (who BTW baled hay every summer of his high school and college careers not because he had to but because he *chose* to.) I personally loved my job as bookstore clerk that I had after I finally finished my thesis - every employee there, BTW, had at least one degree and was working in the store at barely above minimum because they *liked* it.
I’ve always had a problem with people assuming they speak for everyone within a certain dempgraphic. Simply because I feel one way certainly does not mean that all mid-30s college educated white women tilt so left they have a bad back, love hummus, Bud Light and Liam Neeson. I guess my point is that to assume because someone has a college degree they consider certain jobs beneath them except for do-gooder situations is a bit classist. I know that’s not true in my case, nor in the cases of any of our friends (OK - maybe one friend feels that way, but she has other issues). I wish I was in a position to move to New Orleans right now, but I have two kids and “responsibilities” so that’s just not feasible right now. But the first chance I get, I’m down there, degrees and all.
Check out the following articles from Fast Company almost seven years ago:
The series: Reinventing New Orleans
And Especially: Recruiting and Retaining Talent
A lot of things have changed but it seems the issues have stayed the same…
While I would never belittle the problems of coming here with children, I have chosen to come home after a long absence, children in tow, and I know I’m not along.
We need everyone who is willing to come to come. Ovecoming the challenges, including the educational ones, are something that anyone coming here needs to do eyes open.
That should not, however, stop people with families from coming. The frontier wasn’t settled by yuppies, but by people making a life for their families.
Otherwise non of us woulda’ got born cos
they all would’ve died from syphillas!
Laurie
My main issue with my kids is the uprooting. We moved about 3 years ago and it was traumatic. Plus, I’m in the middle of a grad program and really need to stay put for another 6mos to get the bulk of my reserach done (it will mostly oral interviews with people here in Memphis) After that, away we go.
I’m not say everyone with kids should do this. I watched a film about some guys climbing Everest who left a baby behind and I’m thinking, what an idiot (given the high fatality incidence).
We were going to move anyway for professional and other reasons, and the kids were transitioning from junior to high school, and elementary to middle. It was a good year to move.
It just worked out that, when I told my wife in *September* I wanted to move [back, for me] to New Orleans, she didn’t spit wine all over herself in convulsive laughter. Instead she said, how would we do that?
She’s the real story in this anecdote: she came down in January, leaving me and the kids behind, because she found a job first. Found us a dry house, did all the running and submitting in triplicate and groveling at Lusher and Ben Franklin and NOCCA. Found carpenters to make a cut in the double and make it a single for us, painted everythign, and generally reverted to being one of her Dakota pioneer forebearers.
The real issue is: we need people to come home to make a go of it. And as I’ve pointed on my blog several times in the past, the entire continent was settled by people who dragged their families off into to Godthe -Forsaken Wilderness. Moving to NOLA now is no different than the story line of the Little House on the Prarie books. Hell, we’re in fact much less likely to freeze to death here than were were in Fargo, although the natives are somewhat more pacified up there than down here.
It’s really about needing people of all sorts: young, old; single, married; whatever, as long as they are coming here to work and be a part of the rebirth of NOLA, even if for them that just means coming home. You don’t have to gut houses in the Ninth Ward every weekend or dive into your neighborhood recovery group. You just need to be here, buy a house, spend money, send your kids to school, basiscally come and live a life.
Hey ya’ll,
I’m twenty-something, college degreed, single, and moving to New Orleans in the next few weeks. I’m also quite fortunate, I have a job lined up and I’ll be starting grad school (Urbran Planning) once I arrive. Everything is great execpt for one thing, the colossal issue of decent and affordable housing availability in the city cannot be overstated. If someone can afford to buy (not me) the situation is only slightly better. I’m not really complaining, I’ll suck it up and make it work but that’s the main detraction I see for young single people moving to New Orleans. Ok I’ve also heard there may not be as many single women around but I’ll deal with that too.
Hey Freddie,
Just a short comment to say there are single women here in New Orleans. I am one! I actually think there is a short supply of ’single men’ here. Most are married, with kids, etc.
Also, I have a great job, but if you don’t have the skills, education and dedication to ‘help rebuild New Orleans’ - you shouldn’t be (or move) here. Yes, it takes a lot of patience and it’s still a little mind boggling that this is the new ‘norm’. My approach is to: Deal with the present - forget about the past - and strive for a better future. It’s all how you look at it (i.e. perspective).
P.S. Chris, just wanted to give a shout out to say you’re an awesome blogger!
Hi Chris,
I’ve tried to move to New Orleans just a few months before the Katrina. After almost three months looking for a job I had to give up and move back to Rio.
Despite of being born in L.A., I would like to think that the lack of any job experience in US was my main problem (I was raised in Brazil), but after being rejected on my SECOND interview for BARBACK in a strip joint… well… I began to realised that was a wrong idea.
I was filling applications almost every single day and running out of money quickly. Gosh! It was a living hell sleeping in a bedroom without any furniture (only my bags and a inflatable mattress) and nothing else to do at night because I had to save every penny.
It’s funny… I still love New Orleans but it was the worst time of my life.
[]s Nix
P.S.: Soon I’ll be writing for Metroblogging Rio. :) See ya!
I feel this is a choice that more people would be making if housing was not in such short supply here.
Absolutely. My decision to move down here this spring from Minneapolis was directly related to my ability to rent an apartment in a house my parents own.
Though I would have had trouble making the same decision without this housing option, I still emphatically agree that being single and 22 in New Orleans post-Katrina is better than being single and 22 (and freezing) in Minneapolis any time.
There are young single men trying to move to New Orleans, I am one. Being a recent graduate from a top liberal arts school, I would think getting a decent job in new orleans would be easy. I was wrong. I have been looking for a job about 3 months and have found almost nothing or jobs that pay less than a fast food chain. I now have two job offers in other cities when I wasn’t even trying to get employed at them. Where is the economic opportunity in New Orleans. I can’t hold out forever. I am willing to work hard but can’t find a place to work. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on banks, financial institutions that are hiring or even sales jobs?