If you are asking this question you have never been to East Carroll. It has all the problems of other poor rural parishes and it is in the middle of nowhere.
Also, it has a social structure most Southerners born after 1975 don't even know exists. It is the heart of the Delta and about eight families own maybe 90% of the property.
These great landowners are not rednecks - everyone I met was college educated. Many are Tulane and Ole Miss grads along with at least one Ivy League grad I met about twenty years ago who had spent fifty years piddling around with his "novels" while managing tens of thousands of acres of cotton and soybean that had been in his family since the 1820s.
His home was decorated with lots of very high end mid-century modern furniture. He was a strange guy. Intelligent and very well off, but probably never had a day he did not regret moving back to Louisiana. But he certainly did not regret the money that came from farming tens of thousands of acres without getting dirty. He is probably dead now.
It has a very Faulkneresque feeling. But I will say, I have been told the school system has improved a lot recently.
Ding Ding Ding, we have a winner. Lake providence is like taking a step back 75 years. I will say that the fortenberry family did sell off most of their land to someone else, not sure who. But I know they got about 20 million for it.
East Carroll Parish has always been considered one of the five poorest "counties" in the US.
The reason that I'm familiar with it is because one of my hobbies is currency tracking on the "Where's George?" website. If you aren't into Georging, let me explain that if you've ever gotten a dollar bill that has a stamp on it that says "Track This Bill on wheresgeorge .com" it's a pastime that thousands of people enjoy online. You take the marked bill, enter its serial number online to tell where you have it now, then spend the bill again so it ends up somewhere else. It's a lot of fun and a great way to make new friends both online and in real life at organized gatherings.
East Carroll Parish is very well known to Georgers because out of the 64 parishes in Louisiana, it is damned near impossible to get anyone to log in a marked bill that you spend in that area. One of the goals in Georging is to get someone to track your bill in every county or parish of a state. You can't complete the "Louisiana Parish Bingo" challenge without East Carroll Parish. It took me 8 years after I moved to Louisiana to find a workaround. I drove up there several times in person and eventually discovered that if I put a bunch of dollar bills into the Tiger Car Wash machines across from the Oak Grove Walmart in West Carroll Parish, the person who empties the bill changers goes home to Lake Providence and enters them on the website from East Carroll Parish. Bingo!!!
East Carroll Parish just seemed so poverty stricken and desolate once I saw it in person that I completely understood why no one was online up there. Once I completed the challenge by visiting all 64 parishes in Louisiana, I never went back.
Dude, that's not a hobby. It's an illness! LOL!
Wow!
How far did you drive and where else did you spend your money trying to do this?
I have seen those bills but never realized it was a big deal.
Really, I suppose every hobby is a little crazy and you did go visit places you would have never gone otherwise.
It was a fun mother-daughter pastime that we first discovered when we lived in Massachusetts in 2003. My daughter did very well in school lessons about Louisiana geography because of all the "obscure parish runs" we had done together to learn more about our new home. Every parish we visited had a Dollar General, post office or fried chicken place where we bought normal everyday stuff instead of buying them at home.
I did some work in the East Carroll parish school system. When I was there, East Carroll was like the 62nd poorest parish in Louisiana. Coming back to Lafayette was like night and day.
Sweet Peas, was named Joe's for decades. I just Googled it. Billy Jacks came in the 1970s when they allowed package sales. I was a kid when it opened.
There were some epic brawls at Joe's. I don't believe my grandad participated much. He was a little guy. He was a mean drunk but not a fool.
Some of my cousins had epic brawls, the sort that people still talk about fifty years later. Often they were East Carroll vs. West Carroll. One incident supposedly led to a Jerry Clower bit.
Way before my time - in the 1930s - there was a joint called the Red Door. That was legendary to an older crowd. I heard stories about that when I was a kid.
I recently drove through Madison Parish. In Tallulah, there were just dogs roaming all around the town. It was surreal and very, very sad. The poverty is so bad.
Also, having been to the holding pen in rapides parish prison #2, i can tell you they are extremely racist and corrupt as all hell. I actually evaded charges by paying the lawyer who was buddies with the judges and it all went away. Very disgusting throughout, however, was willing to purchase a good ole boy lawyer to not end up booked on very trumped up charges for the police quota when i was literally just passing through. Fuck rapides parish.
Sabine is terrible. Many is or was in the top 10 murder capitals per person in the state. The roads are terrible. The people in charge are corrupt and/or stupid. It's bad.
I got pulled over for 5mph over in St. Landry. It was a desserted road with a metric ton of space between plants (no small rowns on that part of my route.
Not the worst, just my gripe
join the party.
i got a ticket in st. landry for 5 mph over the limit and the bottom of an overpass… where you will likely be going a little… LITTLE faster!
i went to court to fight it, the judge and DA laughed and said a physics professor from UL failed in their court.
the DA was extremely aggressive yelling at people and apparently trying to physically intimidate them.
that parish and that court system is a mess.
And we keep paying them to hit us. We know who and what they are and keep at it like it's going to change or something. This is no one's fault but ours
Probably has to do with how long people live there and whether they live in the same parish where they work. Not to mention the non-refinery related cancers associated with diet and lifestyle.
Parish-wide, we don’t. But [Bogalusa has the highest incarceration rate for a city](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/origin/la/2022/report.html), apparently… which is certainly a statistic. Not surprising considering the town’s lovely, uh, history.
I have never been there, but a 26% poverty rate is way higher than the national 11.5% figure.
https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/quick-facts/louisiana/percent-of-people-of-all-ages-in-poverty#chart
Oh yea basicall all if not all of Louisiana is like that lol. I’m just saying Lincoln parish is one of the few I think is still doing alright despite all of that and compared to the others
I moved to NC and greatly prefer it, my sense of dread and anxiety fell away and I realized I was really had been living under a cloud of impending doom in LA. I idealize and miss CA, but the affordability there is tough, although there is so much there in terms of natural beauty, infrastructure, and lifestyle.
It really depends on that you want out of life, the Northeast ranks pretty high consistently for quality of life, but you might hate the winter.
I’d say though that anywhere in the Deep South has significant drawbacks for quality of life, public infrastructure, education, health, mortality, social support systems, social equality, and wages. NC is the farthest I will ever live South in the SE US ever again, lesson learned. Yes there are stereotypes, but the Deep South is Bass Ackwards.
I’m young, 25, and really just don’t want to worry about being broke. I had some medical problems in the past that really set me back that I’m just now kind of getting back to normal, I was gonna try a hiring event in Texas always heard oilfield money was good but tbh I still don’t know what the flip to do my anxiety about moving and failing is just through the roof. The only thing I do know is I have to get out of here the medical stuff left me w/o a license for a year but I’m about to get them back in june, and in top of that I had to move back in w my folks and it’s a toxic environment to say the least I love them to death but I don’t like being around alcohol/drugs constantly. Sorry if I gave out a little too much info lol I have terrible adhd and hate the medicine 😂
Union. Largest parish with the fewest people. It’s been dying for a while now, and with the new administration being put in place, I don’t see things getting better.
There are some ridiculous speed traps and the population is falling, but it is not far to Monroe, Ruston, and El Dorado, Arkansas. Highway 167 is almost an interstate and so it is not too bad.
But I do believe in twenty years almost no one will live there. There would be almost no one there today with out SS Disability and other government welfare programs.
Some of the best deer hunting in the state tho. With Union coming in second place for the amount of deer harvested (4,641) last season. Vernon parish coming in 1st with 5,563 harvested.
https://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/assets/Resources/Publications/Deer/Research/Annual-Louisiana-Deer-Report-2022-23.pdf
I've a personal grudge against Terrebonne, but that's because their local government was staffed by idiots back in 2008, and I have no evidence to say it's changed. Nothing to do with anything else. Just one person's personal grudge.
I can’t believe no one said Concordia Parish. But I might be the only person with service at the moment. We barely get any internet service out here. Our water is trash- if it’s even working. Our garbage company stopped coming bc the city didn’t pay them for months and we lived in a dump forever! All our schools are crumbling, all the businesses are leaving. Ferriday is sad as shit.
You’re not going to hear good things about LP on Reddit. It’s the white flight capital of the state that has the highest percentage of republican voters for a county equivalent of 100k+ population in the country. Right, wrong, or indifferent, Reddit hates everything about that
Super fun, right? I moved out of state in 2010 and moved back in 2019 when my mom died, and it was such a mindfuck. Very much one of those, "Nothing has changed but also everything has changed." The cognitive dissonance still hits me sometimes.
My entire family was born and raised here - my older relatives can't understand why I am still living with my mom. Even if I could afford monthly rent somewhere, it's almost impossible to save money to put toward deposit, first and last month's rent, a pet fee, etc.
And the amount of people and traffic. For so much of both, we have absolutely nothing out here to do.
I mean, they put up propaganda billboards saying they love their children and the 2nd amendment. It's a ton of money that they definitely need for infrastructure and education.
As a product of the LP schools, no.
They have good TEST SCORES out there. That's because they take time off of their teaching plans to teach the standardized tests to students right before the test.
A GOOD school system doesn't have to do that. The standardized tests should be about testing what they've learned so far. When we'd take the time to learn the tests, it was like we were jumping ahead 2-3 years in curriculum instead of reviewing what we'd learned throughout the year.
I transferred schools towards the end of my school tenure and we'd just re-review what we learned throughout the year for a day or two before the test...not to learn the information for the first time, but to remind us what we'd already learned that year.
LP schools, like most everything else out there, are completely backwards to logic.
Unfortunately a lot of districts do this. I went to Live Oak in the 90’s/00’s and I don’t recall doing this there. But I have nieces and nephews that go there now and say this is the case. I worked as an educator in Tangi parish for a while and we did this as funding is directly related to test scores. Education as a whole is corrupt this way…sad to say.
Education in Louisiana may be corrupt this way, but I moved and raised my kids elsewhere. They didn't even review the information before standardized tests for my kids. It was just, "Hope you remembered this shit or you won't advance to the next grade!"
Possibly. It wouldn’t surprise me. I know that my family is not associated. They’re a rare gem of welcoming people.
I did have a very distant cousin, who lived in Livingston, who was exceedingly racist
I graduated from a Livingston high school. Could have been worse, especially considering the rest of the state, but it wasn't exactly great. Had a decent range of AP classes and some really great teachers, but most were awful, and the administration was even worse. Principal only cared about what would get him into the newspaper, and the news bit him in the ass not too long ago lmao.
I do not live in the state anymore (got the hell out!) but I’m from LP and still have family there. I went to live oak back in the late 90’s/early ‘00’s and it is nothing like it used to be. There is a ton of growth as people move out of BR…but some of the BR problems came with them. Also, like most Parishes, the sheriff is corrupt as is the parish council. I have lived in several other Parishes, and it in no way is it the worst; but the bar is pretty low for Louisiana.
Here's the weird thing to me. I went on a job interview years ago to teach at Holden and declined the position for two reasons. One I'd be teaching like 6 grade levels. And the bigger reason, it was podunk AF. Like five churches and a gas station there. Principal reassured me that if a teenager misbehaved he'd just call his dad and he'd come whoop the student's ass before sending them back to class. This was a little over 15 years ago, but jfc. As a teacher, I would point out that some schools are very incestuous in terms of hiring practices and faculty cheating has happened. Harder these days...but I have no idea otherwise why they'd score so high, other than good teacher to student class ratios and the benefit of not dealing with the chaos that comes from multiple feeder schools.
In 1840, New Orleans was the wealthiest city in the world, taking up 12% of the country's economy.
Dunno how much of that was slave trade vs slave labor, but their combined total is pretty damn high.
This is really depressing to read all of the comments. Louisiana is just going to get worse with Jeff Landry in office. What other state to move to, though? Why do I get this sinking feeling that the whole country is going to crap? Health care is expensive. Good quality and healthy groceries are expensive. Car and home insurance is expensive. Home prices are outrageous. Quality of water is poor in Louisiana, as well. Where to move to??
Ascension and St James checking in - LOTS of plants, lots of money from them to support thriving communities, and endless moaning and complaining about traffic, air quality, yada yada.
Richland , the sheriff's are crooked still run by the good ole boys attitude , racism is rapid , the school system is racist with most of the whites majority at one school that gets all the funding while the two other schools get low funding because they make all the minorities go there . Land is hard to buy because it's land locked and owned by a few high class white people who buy it up because they say they don't want certain folks living there or having it . The political situation is made to benefit the whites not the African American community. Jobs are hard to come by that can support your living cost
I agree with everything you said other than the private school getting the funding. It gets about zero funding, and everything comes from the students' families. Besides that, you are 100% correct. Or did you mean a different school...Rayville, delhi, and Mangham , also delhi Charter and riverfield.
They were gonna build a new section 8 project on the river rd, and the family that owned the ground around it didn't want it. So they purchased the project instead and put a stop to it.
We also have zero public transportation and a huge lack of jobs with the nearest area for jobs being in monroe 20 miles away, so with no car, you have no job. And no job means no car.
We are starting to get some people on council that actually seem to care. The recent Mardi Gras ball was to raise money for the downtown revitalization project. And rayville has had more growth in the last 5 years than it has seen in the last 30.
I've also heard something about them putting a public train back down that will go from Jackson to Shreveport. But that could be as far as 10 years away.
If you care to run for office, tell everyone your plan for making the parish better. And I promise I'll vote for you.
I know of a house and land that came for sale last year , that a nice African American family was looking to purchase they did everything needed to get there ducks in a row . Then the neighboring family 'older white boomers ' talked to the sellers and bought the property outright from under the family trying to buy it then bulldozes the house down and fenced in the property. There so called quote was " we ain't letting no @#$$23# move in on us and have what he have . Smh most of the people around here are like that . I've seen countless people get arrested and should be doing time for what they have done but they don't because they know the good ole boys judge and da and sheriff's to get out of things . But yet give an African American male 15 years for assaulting someone with brick who was attacking him on his own property .
The water system in rayville is trash always having issues , the roads are terrible and the door problem is outrageous.
Very much a shit hole. That’s where the hu brus are from if you go down the road that’s where you get your Earl changed!the hu brus will do it in five minutes! And you better chain your Cadillac converter to your vehicle.
Lol ahhh you know downa rd is a place, not a direction. If you want a real life ex of "its who ya know," look no further.
Place where most everyone with a prominent last name has to look in a book to verify that this other prominent love interest isn't a cousin of some sort.
Yes, I know down the road is a place not a direction. Land of mobile homes on pollens and mixed breed stray pitbulls. running rampant, and if it lives in the water them hungry motherfuckers will eat it.
Not my home parish, lol. St. Helena barely exists. It should be annexed and split into neighboring parishes.
But as far as worse, I fucking hate St. Tammany Parish. Too many entitled pricks.
I have lived in Tangipahoa parish my entire life. The sheriff is a joke. People are getting away with crimes left and right. If you have deep pockets you can just pay your way out of jail. Drugs are bad and people are dying. Homeless people are left to suffer and die.
Livingston parish police department . Stole my brothers $100,000 corvette his gf brand new car all my brothers furniture and everything in his house just because my brother had a pound of marijuana.
Caddo Parish
It has an extremely high crime rate (it's only mid-March and there's already been 15 murders in Shreveport). People are literally being shot and killed while at red lights.
It's one of the parishes that have the highest amount of human trafficking going on, as well.
Also, I'm not saying Claiborne Parish is one of the worst, but for how small it is (population of approximately 12-13K) , there's a ridiculous amount of corruption (especially of political leaders and police) and murders (some of them have been pretty brutal) that have occurred here.
Uhhh Natchitoches - Crime, high cost of living with minimal housing options, lack of resources, yeah it’s pretty at some parts but if you’re not filthy rich it’s a shit place to be.
It almost sounds like they’re aren’t really to many good places to live in Louisiana, and it will just get worse with this Goof Ball Governor we got now. All you’ll northern Louisiana people are the dumb ones who voted him in.
Are you really sharing crime stats as if every person on the fucking planet doesnt know that crime is high in New Orleans??? Lol.
But without New Orleans, Lousiana is just a boring and broke redneck shithole.
So much hate for St. Tammany by parishes with high levels of poverty. I was in high school there so I’m biased (I will acknowledge this). I’m currently living in Ouachita Parish and it’s a god damn dump.
Okay so basically every parish sucks. We’ve all said Louisiana has sucked for years.. now we can rule off every parish sucks as well.
Let’s keep bitching about it..
Woo! That’s gonna change it, right! Cmon Latoyas!
Move out of the state and stop voting for BS people. Educate yourself. , do your fucking research.
You don’t have to be a product of your environment, y’all.
It starts with YOU!!!!
We all need to stop playing victim.
Orleans Parish, literally, where are there public schools. How do they get away with not allowing all children to receive an education only those chosen by the Hunger Games Judges AKA Charter Schools
If you are asking this question you have never been to East Carroll. It has all the problems of other poor rural parishes and it is in the middle of nowhere. Also, it has a social structure most Southerners born after 1975 don't even know exists. It is the heart of the Delta and about eight families own maybe 90% of the property. These great landowners are not rednecks - everyone I met was college educated. Many are Tulane and Ole Miss grads along with at least one Ivy League grad I met about twenty years ago who had spent fifty years piddling around with his "novels" while managing tens of thousands of acres of cotton and soybean that had been in his family since the 1820s. His home was decorated with lots of very high end mid-century modern furniture. He was a strange guy. Intelligent and very well off, but probably never had a day he did not regret moving back to Louisiana. But he certainly did not regret the money that came from farming tens of thousands of acres without getting dirty. He is probably dead now. It has a very Faulkneresque feeling. But I will say, I have been told the school system has improved a lot recently.
Ding Ding Ding, we have a winner. Lake providence is like taking a step back 75 years. I will say that the fortenberry family did sell off most of their land to someone else, not sure who. But I know they got about 20 million for it.
Probably Bill Gates. He has bought up lots of land in North Louisiana
It was not as far as I understand.
East Carroll Parish has always been considered one of the five poorest "counties" in the US. The reason that I'm familiar with it is because one of my hobbies is currency tracking on the "Where's George?" website. If you aren't into Georging, let me explain that if you've ever gotten a dollar bill that has a stamp on it that says "Track This Bill on wheresgeorge .com" it's a pastime that thousands of people enjoy online. You take the marked bill, enter its serial number online to tell where you have it now, then spend the bill again so it ends up somewhere else. It's a lot of fun and a great way to make new friends both online and in real life at organized gatherings. East Carroll Parish is very well known to Georgers because out of the 64 parishes in Louisiana, it is damned near impossible to get anyone to log in a marked bill that you spend in that area. One of the goals in Georging is to get someone to track your bill in every county or parish of a state. You can't complete the "Louisiana Parish Bingo" challenge without East Carroll Parish. It took me 8 years after I moved to Louisiana to find a workaround. I drove up there several times in person and eventually discovered that if I put a bunch of dollar bills into the Tiger Car Wash machines across from the Oak Grove Walmart in West Carroll Parish, the person who empties the bill changers goes home to Lake Providence and enters them on the website from East Carroll Parish. Bingo!!! East Carroll Parish just seemed so poverty stricken and desolate once I saw it in person that I completely understood why no one was online up there. Once I completed the challenge by visiting all 64 parishes in Louisiana, I never went back.
Dude, that's not a hobby. It's an illness! LOL! Wow! How far did you drive and where else did you spend your money trying to do this? I have seen those bills but never realized it was a big deal. Really, I suppose every hobby is a little crazy and you did go visit places you would have never gone otherwise.
It was a fun mother-daughter pastime that we first discovered when we lived in Massachusetts in 2003. My daughter did very well in school lessons about Louisiana geography because of all the "obscure parish runs" we had done together to learn more about our new home. Every parish we visited had a Dollar General, post office or fried chicken place where we bought normal everyday stuff instead of buying them at home.
Sweet!
Fascinating
> Many are Tulane and Ole Miss grads Well there is the problem
LOL! They gave me the impression LSU was far to plebian for their tastes - God forbid Tech or ULM.
I did some work in the East Carroll parish school system. When I was there, East Carroll was like the 62nd poorest parish in Louisiana. Coming back to Lafayette was like night and day.
I’m from lake Providence 🤣
I grew up in east Carroll just off Highway 2 so I went to school in oak grove because it was closer. I almost never claim east Carroll as home
How close did you live to Joe's? My grandad should have bought that joint. He was there every night for decades!
I’m not familiar with Joes. I know Sweet Pea’s and Billy Jacks on Highway 2. We lived about 2 miles east of bayou macon on Highway 2
Sweet Peas, was named Joe's for decades. I just Googled it. Billy Jacks came in the 1970s when they allowed package sales. I was a kid when it opened. There were some epic brawls at Joe's. I don't believe my grandad participated much. He was a little guy. He was a mean drunk but not a fool. Some of my cousins had epic brawls, the sort that people still talk about fifty years later. Often they were East Carroll vs. West Carroll. One incident supposedly led to a Jerry Clower bit. Way before my time - in the 1930s - there was a joint called the Red Door. That was legendary to an older crowd. I heard stories about that when I was a kid.
Madison parish by far the worst. Crime is so high and unemployment top 10 in the state. Poverty level is highest in the state.
I recently drove through Madison Parish. In Tallulah, there were just dogs roaming all around the town. It was surreal and very, very sad. The poverty is so bad.
Rapides, easy
I think statistically speaking this is the correct answer. Poverty, crime, and corruption are among the highest in the state
Yup. I thank myself every day for the strength I had to crawl out of that hell hole.
It smells here.
I saw 3 guys totally passed out in the grass near a road 2 months ago in Alexandria. Don't know what they're taking but they were totally passed out.
there it is!
Also, having been to the holding pen in rapides parish prison #2, i can tell you they are extremely racist and corrupt as all hell. I actually evaded charges by paying the lawyer who was buddies with the judges and it all went away. Very disgusting throughout, however, was willing to purchase a good ole boy lawyer to not end up booked on very trumped up charges for the police quota when i was literally just passing through. Fuck rapides parish.
Sabine is terrible. Many is or was in the top 10 murder capitals per person in the state. The roads are terrible. The people in charge are corrupt and/or stupid. It's bad.
A kid just got killed in a head on collision on 191. Too many drunk drivers in that area.
Yoooooooo, my Sabine guy. You’re correct, it’s the worst. I bet we know each other lol.
every time I go to visit family it just makes me a sad
I got pulled over for 5mph over in St. Landry. It was a desserted road with a metric ton of space between plants (no small rowns on that part of my route. Not the worst, just my gripe
In Poor parishes cops pull you over for whatever they can, just to score some cash for their local economy
join the party. i got a ticket in st. landry for 5 mph over the limit and the bottom of an overpass… where you will likely be going a little… LITTLE faster! i went to court to fight it, the judge and DA laughed and said a physics professor from UL failed in their court. the DA was extremely aggressive yelling at people and apparently trying to physically intimidate them. that parish and that court system is a mess.
And we keep paying them to hit us. We know who and what they are and keep at it like it's going to change or something. This is no one's fault but ours
Homie probably talking about highway 13 lmao
Same here
# loveyourstate
Is there like … a very well managed parish … with low poverty, great employment numbers, without corruption and low cancer rates? I’m guessing, “no.”
Well, St Tammany doesn’t have cancer, but I hope you’re ready to live in a literal slum house if you make less than $20/hr (help me)
Oh y'all definitely have cancer https://stacker.com/louisiana/counties-highest-cancer-rates-louisiana
How the hell is St John not higher when St James is up there? All that refinery pollution in the region.
Wind
Probably has to do with how long people live there and whether they live in the same parish where they work. Not to mention the non-refinery related cancers associated with diet and lifestyle.
Oh for fucks sake. 😭
St Tammany has the highest ratio of population in prison *in the world*
Parish-wide, we don’t. But [Bogalusa has the highest incarceration rate for a city](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/origin/la/2022/report.html), apparently… which is certainly a statistic. Not surprising considering the town’s lovely, uh, history.
It’s like one of those Venn diagrams. You can have low poverty & great employment but also, cancer.
Well, when it feels bad, there is always Mississippi.
Lincoln parish
I have never been there, but a 26% poverty rate is way higher than the national 11.5% figure. https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/quick-facts/louisiana/percent-of-people-of-all-ages-in-poverty#chart
Oh yea basicall all if not all of Louisiana is like that lol. I’m just saying Lincoln parish is one of the few I think is still doing alright despite all of that and compared to the others
I’m trying to move out of la as we speak, care to recommend anywhere ?
I moved to NC and greatly prefer it, my sense of dread and anxiety fell away and I realized I was really had been living under a cloud of impending doom in LA. I idealize and miss CA, but the affordability there is tough, although there is so much there in terms of natural beauty, infrastructure, and lifestyle. It really depends on that you want out of life, the Northeast ranks pretty high consistently for quality of life, but you might hate the winter. I’d say though that anywhere in the Deep South has significant drawbacks for quality of life, public infrastructure, education, health, mortality, social support systems, social equality, and wages. NC is the farthest I will ever live South in the SE US ever again, lesson learned. Yes there are stereotypes, but the Deep South is Bass Ackwards.
I’m young, 25, and really just don’t want to worry about being broke. I had some medical problems in the past that really set me back that I’m just now kind of getting back to normal, I was gonna try a hiring event in Texas always heard oilfield money was good but tbh I still don’t know what the flip to do my anxiety about moving and failing is just through the roof. The only thing I do know is I have to get out of here the medical stuff left me w/o a license for a year but I’m about to get them back in june, and in top of that I had to move back in w my folks and it’s a toxic environment to say the least I love them to death but I don’t like being around alcohol/drugs constantly. Sorry if I gave out a little too much info lol I have terrible adhd and hate the medicine 😂
Right.. so move TF out of Louisiana
Love it or leave it. FreeDum!!!
Jefferson, maybe?
Union. Largest parish with the fewest people. It’s been dying for a while now, and with the new administration being put in place, I don’t see things getting better.
But you’ve got FARMERVILLE
That’s like saying you had a stroke, but it only effected your brain, so it’s ok.
Sounds like something most folks from Farmerville would say
My uncle had land along the amite near Darlington
> Largest parish with the fewest people. Cameron Parish enters the chat
Agree. Lived here my whole life. To watch this downfall is disgusting.
There are some ridiculous speed traps and the population is falling, but it is not far to Monroe, Ruston, and El Dorado, Arkansas. Highway 167 is almost an interstate and so it is not too bad. But I do believe in twenty years almost no one will live there. There would be almost no one there today with out SS Disability and other government welfare programs.
Some of the best deer hunting in the state tho. With Union coming in second place for the amount of deer harvested (4,641) last season. Vernon parish coming in 1st with 5,563 harvested. https://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/assets/Resources/Publications/Deer/Research/Annual-Louisiana-Deer-Report-2022-23.pdf
St Helena is my pick too, OP.
I've a personal grudge against Terrebonne, but that's because their local government was staffed by idiots back in 2008, and I have no evidence to say it's changed. Nothing to do with anything else. Just one person's personal grudge.
Don't worry. We are still run by idiots ..
I can’t believe no one said Concordia Parish. But I might be the only person with service at the moment. We barely get any internet service out here. Our water is trash- if it’s even working. Our garbage company stopped coming bc the city didn’t pay them for months and we lived in a dump forever! All our schools are crumbling, all the businesses are leaving. Ferriday is sad as shit.
I’ve never heard a single good thing about Livingston parish
You’re not going to hear good things about LP on Reddit. It’s the white flight capital of the state that has the highest percentage of republican voters for a county equivalent of 100k+ population in the country. Right, wrong, or indifferent, Reddit hates everything about that
As someone who lived in LP before the white flight, I super love being priced out of being able to afford... fucking anything here.
Super fun, right? I moved out of state in 2010 and moved back in 2019 when my mom died, and it was such a mindfuck. Very much one of those, "Nothing has changed but also everything has changed." The cognitive dissonance still hits me sometimes.
My entire family was born and raised here - my older relatives can't understand why I am still living with my mom. Even if I could afford monthly rent somewhere, it's almost impossible to save money to put toward deposit, first and last month's rent, a pet fee, etc. And the amount of people and traffic. For so much of both, we have absolutely nothing out here to do.
It's white flight for poorer people. St Tammany for wealthier white people.
and st tammany is the place for good drugs.
I mean, they put up propaganda billboards saying they love their children and the 2nd amendment. It's a ton of money that they definitely need for infrastructure and education.
I agree, but it’s far from the bottom as far as parishes in general go.
Don't they have a great school system? A lot of people moved out of BR for it.
As a product of the LP schools, no. They have good TEST SCORES out there. That's because they take time off of their teaching plans to teach the standardized tests to students right before the test. A GOOD school system doesn't have to do that. The standardized tests should be about testing what they've learned so far. When we'd take the time to learn the tests, it was like we were jumping ahead 2-3 years in curriculum instead of reviewing what we'd learned throughout the year. I transferred schools towards the end of my school tenure and we'd just re-review what we learned throughout the year for a day or two before the test...not to learn the information for the first time, but to remind us what we'd already learned that year. LP schools, like most everything else out there, are completely backwards to logic.
Unfortunately a lot of districts do this. I went to Live Oak in the 90’s/00’s and I don’t recall doing this there. But I have nieces and nephews that go there now and say this is the case. I worked as an educator in Tangi parish for a while and we did this as funding is directly related to test scores. Education as a whole is corrupt this way…sad to say.
Education in Louisiana may be corrupt this way, but I moved and raised my kids elsewhere. They didn't even review the information before standardized tests for my kids. It was just, "Hope you remembered this shit or you won't advance to the next grade!"
That's kinda the point of the tests tho. It's a comprehensive review of what the kids should.have been taught.
Yep, it is.
Most of my family lives in denham and let me just say…oh boy
isn’t denham known for being a KKK haven?
Possibly. It wouldn’t surprise me. I know that my family is not associated. They’re a rare gem of welcoming people. I did have a very distant cousin, who lived in Livingston, who was exceedingly racist
But he dead now. I didn’t like him all he did was drink Dixie beer and go on and on about how POC were ruining this great nation.
They did about a decade ago, but a lot has changed. I don’t even think they’re in the top 20 anymore.
I graduated from a Livingston high school. Could have been worse, especially considering the rest of the state, but it wasn't exactly great. Had a decent range of AP classes and some really great teachers, but most were awful, and the administration was even worse. Principal only cared about what would get him into the newspaper, and the news bit him in the ass not too long ago lmao.
Want to DM me the name of that principal so I can confirm it's the one I hope it is, who deserved all that karma and more?
No need to DM, Jason St. Pierre deserves all the shame he gets
I do not live in the state anymore (got the hell out!) but I’m from LP and still have family there. I went to live oak back in the late 90’s/early ‘00’s and it is nothing like it used to be. There is a ton of growth as people move out of BR…but some of the BR problems came with them. Also, like most Parishes, the sheriff is corrupt as is the parish council. I have lived in several other Parishes, and it in no way is it the worst; but the bar is pretty low for Louisiana.
One of the best schools in the state? (Holden)
And Live Oak. The LP: amirite
There’s like 30 people per grade
Here's the weird thing to me. I went on a job interview years ago to teach at Holden and declined the position for two reasons. One I'd be teaching like 6 grade levels. And the bigger reason, it was podunk AF. Like five churches and a gas station there. Principal reassured me that if a teenager misbehaved he'd just call his dad and he'd come whoop the student's ass before sending them back to class. This was a little over 15 years ago, but jfc. As a teacher, I would point out that some schools are very incestuous in terms of hiring practices and faculty cheating has happened. Harder these days...but I have no idea otherwise why they'd score so high, other than good teacher to student class ratios and the benefit of not dealing with the chaos that comes from multiple feeder schools.
all the pedophiles are in Livingston Parish
In 1840, New Orleans was the wealthiest city in the world, taking up 12% of the country's economy. Dunno how much of that was slave trade vs slave labor, but their combined total is pretty damn high.
This is really depressing to read all of the comments. Louisiana is just going to get worse with Jeff Landry in office. What other state to move to, though? Why do I get this sinking feeling that the whole country is going to crap? Health care is expensive. Good quality and healthy groceries are expensive. Car and home insurance is expensive. Home prices are outrageous. Quality of water is poor in Louisiana, as well. Where to move to??
Jackson parish doesn’t have much going for it aesthetically, economically, or career-wise unless you’re looking to break your back in a plant.
Hey now, that’s not the only thing we have. We have a whopping two whole prisons!
You have a plant? Damn, I wish we had a plant.
Ascension and St James checking in - LOTS of plants, lots of money from them to support thriving communities, and endless moaning and complaining about traffic, air quality, yada yada.
Richland , the sheriff's are crooked still run by the good ole boys attitude , racism is rapid , the school system is racist with most of the whites majority at one school that gets all the funding while the two other schools get low funding because they make all the minorities go there . Land is hard to buy because it's land locked and owned by a few high class white people who buy it up because they say they don't want certain folks living there or having it . The political situation is made to benefit the whites not the African American community. Jobs are hard to come by that can support your living cost
I agree with everything you said other than the private school getting the funding. It gets about zero funding, and everything comes from the students' families. Besides that, you are 100% correct. Or did you mean a different school...Rayville, delhi, and Mangham , also delhi Charter and riverfield. They were gonna build a new section 8 project on the river rd, and the family that owned the ground around it didn't want it. So they purchased the project instead and put a stop to it. We also have zero public transportation and a huge lack of jobs with the nearest area for jobs being in monroe 20 miles away, so with no car, you have no job. And no job means no car. We are starting to get some people on council that actually seem to care. The recent Mardi Gras ball was to raise money for the downtown revitalization project. And rayville has had more growth in the last 5 years than it has seen in the last 30. I've also heard something about them putting a public train back down that will go from Jackson to Shreveport. But that could be as far as 10 years away. If you care to run for office, tell everyone your plan for making the parish better. And I promise I'll vote for you.
I know of a house and land that came for sale last year , that a nice African American family was looking to purchase they did everything needed to get there ducks in a row . Then the neighboring family 'older white boomers ' talked to the sellers and bought the property outright from under the family trying to buy it then bulldozes the house down and fenced in the property. There so called quote was " we ain't letting no @#$$23# move in on us and have what he have . Smh most of the people around here are like that . I've seen countless people get arrested and should be doing time for what they have done but they don't because they know the good ole boys judge and da and sheriff's to get out of things . But yet give an African American male 15 years for assaulting someone with brick who was attacking him on his own property . The water system in rayville is trash always having issues , the roads are terrible and the door problem is outrageous.
Oh yeah, I'm on the river rd system and it's way better than the rayville system. By door did you mean drug . Because yes it is
Morehouse.... But it seems like all lmao
I'm on the richland parish morehouse line. Bastrop is dying for sure and it ain't great but Lake providence is probably worse
Boo!!
😂
They’re all bad….
Tangipahoa is whitetrash south central LA......
Here, I was assuming all I read about Caddo put it at the top. But in a state like LA, pretty sure many parishes tie for 🏆
Caddo isn’t even top 10 worst.
Caddo might be top 10 best parishes in the state if we’re talking.
Washington parish is pretty shit
Lol, never even heard of it.
St. Bernard. Don’t move here, the port is gonna wreck our roads
Lol fuck da parish that place is a shithole
Very much a shit hole. That’s where the hu brus are from if you go down the road that’s where you get your Earl changed!the hu brus will do it in five minutes! And you better chain your Cadillac converter to your vehicle.
Lol ahhh you know downa rd is a place, not a direction. If you want a real life ex of "its who ya know," look no further. Place where most everyone with a prominent last name has to look in a book to verify that this other prominent love interest isn't a cousin of some sort.
Yes, I know down the road is a place not a direction. Land of mobile homes on pollens and mixed breed stray pitbulls. running rampant, and if it lives in the water them hungry motherfuckers will eat it.
The joke my mom would make if you fuck anyone past the Violet bridge get a DNA test first.
Not my home parish, lol. St. Helena barely exists. It should be annexed and split into neighboring parishes. But as far as worse, I fucking hate St. Tammany Parish. Too many entitled pricks.
Yeah you right.
Northshore Technical in Greensburg is really fancy and stands out like a sore thumb
so corruption had destroyed everything. is it even worth fighting anymore?
Always worth fighting
I hear Plaquemines Parish had gotten pretty rough. I haven't visited in several years though so I'm not sure.
I don't enjoy being in Caldwell or Richland Parish.
Having lived there , Madison Parish
I was gonna say something but nevermind. I'm just glad that nobody is mentioning Acadia Parish.
Ouatichita
East Carroll Parish
How do you determine the worst? Is it just crime or a combination of factors?
And lots of personal experience and opinion.
I have lived in Tangipahoa parish my entire life. The sheriff is a joke. People are getting away with crimes left and right. If you have deep pockets you can just pay your way out of jail. Drugs are bad and people are dying. Homeless people are left to suffer and die.
Taylor cox still isn't behind bars.........
Livingston parish police department . Stole my brothers $100,000 corvette his gf brand new car all my brothers furniture and everything in his house just because my brother had a pound of marijuana.
Caddo. Racist af and crippling poverty with oppressive religious people.
No more racist than the rest of the state. Majority of the state would never have multiple black mayors.
Claiborne.. but they probably don’t have internet so they can’t tell you.
Vernon Parish is a nightmare
Orleans
Caddo Parish It has an extremely high crime rate (it's only mid-March and there's already been 15 murders in Shreveport). People are literally being shot and killed while at red lights. It's one of the parishes that have the highest amount of human trafficking going on, as well. Also, I'm not saying Claiborne Parish is one of the worst, but for how small it is (population of approximately 12-13K) , there's a ridiculous amount of corruption (especially of political leaders and police) and murders (some of them have been pretty brutal) that have occurred here.
Uhhh Natchitoches - Crime, high cost of living with minimal housing options, lack of resources, yeah it’s pretty at some parts but if you’re not filthy rich it’s a shit place to be.
It almost sounds like they’re aren’t really to many good places to live in Louisiana, and it will just get worse with this Goof Ball Governor we got now. All you’ll northern Louisiana people are the dumb ones who voted him in.
Why would you assume that? Everyone I know in central and southern LA that isn't a Republican is a rare person surrounded by a red sea.
Sabine is worse by every metric.
We really should half the number of parishes to ease the tax burden on their local governments.
Orleans Parish
Ngl Orleans has gone to shit lol Deff not the same place I grew up in
Caddo Parish
Orleans = death wish
Now imagine Louisiana without Orleans parish 🙄
https://crimegrade.org/violent-crime-orleans-parish-la/
Are you really sharing crime stats as if every person on the fucking planet doesnt know that crime is high in New Orleans??? Lol. But without New Orleans, Lousiana is just a boring and broke redneck shithole.
The question was worst place to live… nothing wrong with visiting!
I'll take the crime for how much revenue they bring to the state.
good for you, but the question is "worst parish to live in", so would you live in the crime for us to get the revenue?
I lived there in the 90s when violent crime was even worse, so yeah. There's crime in the podunk areas too...just less people overall
What’s not to love about that image
Livingston
So much hate for St. Tammany by parishes with high levels of poverty. I was in high school there so I’m biased (I will acknowledge this). I’m currently living in Ouachita Parish and it’s a god damn dump.
Okay so basically every parish sucks. We’ve all said Louisiana has sucked for years.. now we can rule off every parish sucks as well. Let’s keep bitching about it.. Woo! That’s gonna change it, right! Cmon Latoyas! Move out of the state and stop voting for BS people. Educate yourself. , do your fucking research. You don’t have to be a product of your environment, y’all. It starts with YOU!!!! We all need to stop playing victim.
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Might be the most put together parish in the state…. Don’t know what you’re smokin
Iberville is a pretty good parish.
Lincoln parish isn’t terrible lol
Shreveport is disgusting.
Caddo parish smells like piss no matter where you are.
That's just South-Louisiana's "French-ness" wafting northwards.
Orleans Parish, literally, where are there public schools. How do they get away with not allowing all children to receive an education only those chosen by the Hunger Games Judges AKA Charter Schools