Moving To The Monroe Area

[Innotech]

North Louisiana is beautiful scenery but not so great to live in. Its similar to northeastern Texas or southern Arkansas but with little of the charm.

[Phil75230]

Originally Posted by cBach

In Louisiana, except for all of Cajun Country (I-10 corridor and south which includes Lake Charles, Lafayette, Baton Rouge, New Orleans) as well as Natchitoches, the rest of the state is a disaster. Alexandria, Monroe, and Ruston are really bad off. Sorry you found out for yourself too late. My suggestion is to do your time and then get the heck out of dodge.

Only half-agree.

Lake Charles is pretty mediocre. NOLA, seems not to have improved much over the decades. Baton Rouge and Lafayette are your best bets, although its a tradeoff between overall quality of community vs easy access to amenities. Hard to disagree about Alexandria and Monroe. Ruston and Natchitoches, I went to school in both towns (though that be 25 to 30 years ago), and I can assure you Ruston is far better than Natchitoches in every way imaginable - statistically and aesthetically. Even so, I have to say if you are in La., then personally I'd choose either Lafayette or Baton Rouge. I'm sorry to say, but that's as overall prosperous, progressive and educated as Louisiana gets (unless you count "Northshore" of Lake Ponchartrain, if you don't mind suburbs).

[annie_himself]

Originally Posted by Phil75230

Only half-agree.

Lake Charles is pretty mediocre. NOLA, seems not to have improved much over the decades. Baton Rouge and Lafayette are your best bets, although its a tradeoff between overall quality of community vs easy access to amenities. Hard to disagree about Alexandria and Monroe. Ruston and Natchitoches, I went to school in both towns (though that be 25 to 30 years ago), and I can assure you Ruston is far better than Natchitoches in every way imaginable - statistically and aesthetically. Even so, I have to say if you are in La., then personally I'd choose either Lafayette or Baton Rouge. I'm sorry to say, but that's as overall prosperous, progressive and educated as Louisiana gets (unless you count "Northshore" of Lake Ponchartrain, if you don't mind suburbs).

New Orleans population is more educated and WAY more progressive than Baton Rouge or Lafayette. And arguably more prosperous as well.
New Orleans has improved very much since the storm, not in all metrics like income inequality and crime, but definitely in others.

[cBach]

Originally Posted by Phil75230

Only half-agree.

Lake Charles is pretty mediocre. NOLA, seems not to have improved much over the decades. Baton Rouge and Lafayette are your best bets, although its a tradeoff between overall quality of community vs easy access to amenities. Hard to disagree about Alexandria and Monroe. Ruston and Natchitoches, I went to school in both towns (though that be 25 to 30 years ago), and I can assure you Ruston is far better than Natchitoches in every way imaginable - statistically and aesthetically. Even so, I have to say if you are in La., then personally I'd choose either Lafayette or Baton Rouge. I'm sorry to say, but that's as overall prosperous, progressive and educated as Louisiana gets (unless you count "Northshore" of Lake Ponchartrain, if you don't mind suburbs).

The only reason to be in Ruston is for Louisiana Tech. People go there, get a degree, then get out.

I presume for the professors they can live a decent life, but Natchitoches has far more to offer. I went to LSMSA there and it is the 9th best high school in the COUNTRY: LSMSA 9th in nation | Lifestyle and events from Livingston Parish, Louisiana | livingstonparishnews.com

The downtown is picture perfect and get this, it's actually OLDER than New Orleans. There is also the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and the restaurants are awesome. The Christmas lights festival attracts over 100,000 people.

Natchitoches is a gem in northern Louisiana.

Lake Charles has some great things to do (casinos, microbreweries, excellent restaurants, beautiful downtown area, parks, hiking trails @ Sam Houston Jones SP, crabbing, fishing, etc...)

I agree that Lafayette is the best city overall in Louisiana though.

[Klassyhk]

Originally Posted by Clouds_Connect

Thanks to all for the replies. I'm about 1.5 years late, but thank you all for the information.

My wife and I found a small little house to rent out in the Swartz area. Monroe itself blows. It's like this place decided it didn't want to advance with the times and stay in an indefinite archaic era. Everything from unclean, contaminated water, to the ****-poor roads and idiots driving among them, horrible infrastructure, to the housing market being a complete joke. Monroe has them all. One thing Monroe doesn't possess is a diverse genetic pool, because with how the folks are around here, you'd think they all came from the same inbred bloodline.

Perhaps we were spoiled living in Florida and didn't realize just how well we had it.

What is the awful smell in the Monroe area? It stinks so badly! I don't yet have the actual living experience that you have but have spent short amount of time there and I'm not surprise that you said it's didn't advance. So it's an anti-progressive place...

[Klassyhk]

Originally Posted by Innotech

North Louisiana is beautiful scenery but not so great to live in. Its similar to northeastern Texas or southern Arkansas but with little of the charm.

North Louisiana is beautiful scenery (but you'll have to find it) but not so great to live in. Its similar to northeastern Texas or southern Arkansas but with NONE of the charm. There, I fixed it for you.

[Tigerbait73]

Originally Posted by Klassyhk

What is the awful smell in the Monroe area? It stinks so badly! I don't yet have the actual living experience that you have but have spent short amount of time there and I'm not surprise that you said it's didn't advance. So it's an anti-progressive place...

Paper mill in WM

[Lizap]

I feel for you as Monroe is not a very desirable place to live..