So I'm just going to info dump and maybe some of this will be helpful. Providing context on where I've lived because I don't know where you're from more specifically than Texas.
I grew up in the suburbs of Tulsa, Oklahoma. I spent a year going to college in Rochester, NY then went back to Tulsa. Years later I moved to Monroe, LA for a job and lived there for a year. Got a different job with the same company and moved to Denver for a year. Then, you guessed it, back to Tulsa.
Now growing up I always thought of Oklahoma as "The South", mostly because of the bible belt culture and well, the politics of the past 60 years. But when I got to Monroe, LA I had a very strong culture shock. The South, the Real South, has a distinct culture that is markedly different than Oklahoma or Texas or like Indiana even if their local politics might be extremely similar.
I would describe people in Monroe as... strangely friendly? As in they were extremely friendly but in a way that I found off-putting and strange at first. Also no one in Monroe was in a hurry... EVER. This is not about driving, but just any kind of direct person to person interaction felt like it would just HANG in the air forever. No matter how transactional the situation people just wanted to TALK to me in a very informal way, but I know for a fact it had nothing to do with me as an individual like they weren't clocking me as being strange or from out of town that was just how they behaved with everyone.
The only truly positive? The Food Was Pretty Amazing, and I know it must be even better in New Orleans.
Louisiana, like all the deep south states, is a terrible state as far as governments go. And like, I know that Texas may feel like oppressively Republican and they've been draining resources from public infrastructure for decades BUT that infrastructure did at least exist to a very high standard at some point in the past. Places like Louisiana or Alabama have NEVER had that infrastructure.
But now here's the real rub. You aren't evaluating Louisiana as a state, you're evaluating New Orleans as a city. Monroe is a shithole out in the middle of nowhere, but New Orleans is the Paris of the South. I never even visited New Orleans, so I can't even comment on it as a tourist. But here is some general advice for moving to a new city/town as a young person job hopping for a career.
Google Maps Everything! Find the zoo where you want to work, then pull up zillow.com and look at the same portion of the map filtering for rentals in your price range. Then google street view the potential places you could be renting. THEN while in the same part of the map search for grocery stores, laundromats, and whatever other type of place you're likely to need to be happy which is very personal. Libraries, fitness gyms, dance clubs, D&D hobby shops, concert venues, whatever you happen to be into.
Pick a hypothetical apartment and look at the commute from it to your new job. On google maps click on the 'layers' and look at Traffic. Change the time from Live Traffic to Typical Traffic, and look at the typical traffic at 7:30 AM, 8:00 AM, 8:30 AM.
It turns out that the type of place that you live has a lot more of a direct impact on your life than the State or Province that it happens to be in. Isolated farm? Little town? Clean suburb? Downtown of a "small" city? (Tulsa, Dallas) Downtown of a hippie college city? (Austin, Kansas City) Armpit of a sprawling "big" city? (Houston, Los Angeles). These are very VERY different types of places, and you won't know how much you like or dislike any of them based on their type until you've "tried" them. But it is fairly easy to take the experiences you have of the cities you do know, and then compare them to the new target city.
New Orleans is by reputation a very unique place, I've heard well traveled Americans describe it as feeling "European". It's also very old. But of course I know that after the Katrina disaster a lot was destroyed so there's also portions that are very "new".
That's about all I have for geography. As for moving to a new place on your own, here's some general advice: if you don't already own a fair deal of expensive furniture do NOT rent a uHaul or pay movers, because you're looking at 3 to 4 thousand dollars (maybe a lot more these days) and I guarantee you are going to save money by just buying furniture in the new city and having it delivered to your new apartment. Used furniture is relatively cheap.
Advice for evaluating a company/org that you're considering moving for, get on their linkedin or maybe their public website and get NOSY. Find relatively young current or former employees on linkedin and just straight up ask them about the organization and its work culture. Go to the city's local newspaper and see what comes up when you search the org in question.
Okay this was a very very long winded way of saying, "I've never been to New Orleans, actually" but I hope it was helpful in some way.
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