Opinion of New Orleans, Louisiana

[TDAS04]

?

[Lechasseur]

Freedom City

[Rand]

Fun to walk around drunk in.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Humid.

(But yes, a Freedom City.)

[SnowLabrador]

Horrible weather, horrible crime, horrible tourist attractions. How do you think I voted?

[dead0man]

great food, best regional cuisine in the country, a lot of big old cool looking houses, lots of urban blight (if you're into that kind of thing)

everything else kind of sucks, it's almost unlivable from May to Sep

[Beet]

Perhaps the most culturally unique city in America, and colorful and entertaining, but also beset more than any other American city with a deep sense of melancholy. The true glory years of the city were before the Civil War, when it was the largest city in the South and one of the busiest ports in the world. It never really recovered from the advent of railroads and the Emancipation Proclamation. Its period of being in relative decline puts the rust belt to shame. Still, its staying power in the American cultural pantheon is impressive, and in that way it is perhaps an inspiration to other cities that went into decline.

[GP270watch]

 Outside of NYC probably America's most important city from a cultural standpoint.

[dead0man]

Outside of NYC probably America's most important city from a cultural standpoint.

I get that it's a very unique culture, but how "important" is it?  How could it possibly be more culturally relevant than:
LA (movies/tv)
SF (hippies/modern progressives)
Atl (modern urban culture, hip hop)
and one could make good arguments in either direction for the following:DC,
Chicago,Detroit,Boston,Seattle,Philly,Austin,Dallas
and if one was argumentative and smart/knowledgeable they could make arguments for another two dozen or so cities

again, I fully understand the uniqueness of it, but I don't think we'd miss it too much if it vanished, certainly not as much as we'd (culturally) miss, say, Atlanta.

[wnwnwn]

Outside of NYC probably America's most important city from a cultural standpoint.

There is a world outside of dixieland jazz

[GP270watch]

 Take Hip Hop, Rappers were mostly broke or severely under valued before New Orleans artists like Master P and Cash Money(Birdman) negotiated those record breaking distribution deals with the major labels. Birdman and Slim went on to sign 3 of the most important artists in Lil Wayne, Drake, and Nicki Minaj on the Young Money/Cash Money imprint. This was the blueprint for Coach K and Coach P who went on to start Quality Control and sign or manage some of the biggest Atlanta hip-hop acts.

 New Orleans has always basically done this, they always have their own thing going that influences everything else. Like Rock and Roll, most casuals think Memphis(Sun Records)as the birthplace of rock and roll. But New Orleans was cutting rock and roll records before and during the Sun Records hey day, with artist like Fats Domino and Little Richard. New Orleans also did the same thing with their own version of Funk. When James Brown was innovating funk New Orleans had their own pioneers with Earl Palmer, The Meters, etc.

 New Orleans was also the cultural connection to Cuba, since there used to be a ferry to Cuba since it was so close. The Cuban embargo has made people forget how huge Cuba was as a cultural influence in the arts to the United States and vice versa and New Orleans was that gateway.

 I was once reading about Bob Marley and The Wailers and they said one of the biggest influence to the their sound was the radio from America. The radio from American stations was highlighted by WNOE in New Orleans and the Black american music they heard. A lot of people speculate that the downbeat emphasis of Ska and Reggae was due to the Afro-Cuban rhythms of New Orleans music

 Hollywood was more influenced by New Orleans than vice versa. The first developments in Hollywood cinematic audio techniques were to capture New Orleans style big bands, minstrel acts, or actual New Orleans acts like Louis Armstrong.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Take Hip Hop, Rappers were mostly broke or severely under valued before New Orleans artists like Master P and Cash Money(Birdman) negotiated those record breaking distribution deals with the major labels. Birdman and Slim went on to sign 3 of the most important artists in Lil Wayne, Drake, and Nicki Minaj on the Young Money/Cash Money imprint. This was the blueprint for Coach K and Coach P who went on to start Quality Control and sign or manage some of the biggest Atlanta hip-hop acts.

 New Orleans has always basically done this, they always have their own thing going that influences everything else. Like Rock and Roll, most casuals think Memphis(Sun Records)as the birthplace of rock and roll. But New Orleans was cutting rock and roll records before and during the Sun Records hey day, with artist like Fats Domino and Little Richard. New Orleans also did the same thing with their own version of Funk. When James Brown was innovating funk New Orleans had their own pioneers with Earl Palmer, The Meters, etc.

 New Orleans was also the cultural connection to Cuba, since there used to be a ferry to Cuba since it was so close. The Cuban embargo has made people forget how huge Cuba was as a cultural influence in the arts to the United States and vice versa and New Orleans was that gateway.

 I was once reading about Bob Marley and The Wailers and they said one of the biggest influence to the their sound was the radio from America. The radio from American stations was highlighted by WNOE in New Orleans and the Black american music they heard. A lot of people speculate that the downbeat emphasis of Ska and Reggae was due to the Afro-Cuban rhythms of New Orleans music

 Hollywood was more influenced by New Orleans than vice versa. The first developments in Hollywood cinematic audio techniques were to capture New Orleans style big bands, minstrel acts, or actual New Orleans acts like Louis Armstrong.

Good post.

[soundchaser]

Decidedly mixed, I say as a native. It’s got the best food in the country, even just in terms of variety, and I’ll fight anyone who disagrees. Sadly there are so many structural issues beyond that — exacerbated in no small part by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 — that nobody seems particularly interested in fixing, or able to fix. That some parts of the city have become/are becoming gentrified hipster havens, with no real sense of the industrial or port history of the area, (and the same generic noise rock bands popping up everywhere) only dilutes the cultural cachet that people move here for in the first place. Little things like Mr. Bingle are just as important to the overall culture as jazz, but these are getting lost as the years go by and a combo of transplants and faceless corps come in. (Not that the latter really can expand the city in any meaningful way, because of geography.)

Couple that with rising insurance rates across the board, a state government that seems to have only culture wars on its mind, and climate change, and I’m not sure how much longer I want to live here.

[Del Tachi]

Freedom City, ofc.  One of the very best America has to offer.

What people who only visit for a short little while don't realize is that New Orleans is so much more than the French Quarter.  The uptown-vs-downtown dynamic here is as strong as it is in New York, with very localized scenes instead of the "N'Awlins" monoculture you see in popular representations of the city.  And as previously mentioned, the food, architecture and annual events/festivals (Mardi Gras!) are all so great and unique.

Of course, there're challenges associated with living here.  The infrastructure is quite bad, and the cost-of-living doesn't really match the availability of good jobs (and increasingly so!)  Gentrification is a real problem; especially in the work-from-home era when New Orleans became a preferred stopover for talent fleeing lockdowns in NYC/LA.  That is slightly abating, and I do think New Orleans will ultimately escape the scrounge of cities like Austin or Miami if only because it is already *so* difficult to live here.  Now would actually be a great time to buy in New Orleans, it's supposedly the coolest real estate market in the country right now LOL 

[vitoNova]

Never been.

Swamp Tales.

A bunch of wooden shacks pretending to be European.

I found more culture in Kaiserslautern and the Burger King/country night in Vogelweh.

Just sayin'