News Roundup

New Orleans CityBusiness

Emilie Bahr, Staff Writer
July 23, 2008

(Editor’s note: The following is coverage of the national recession’s impact on New Orleans.)

NEW ORLEANS - Greg Blackwell moved from Alabama to Louisiana 20 years ago to accept a job at the New Orleans branch of a high-end clothing chain.

With his wife and two sons, he assessed the various housing options available in the metro region and ultimately settled into a home in the heart of Slidell, one that offered a spacious yard, four bedrooms and proximity to high-ranking public schools.

“The North Shore was just more congruent with the neighborhood we were used to living in,” said Blackwell, 50. “At the time that we purchased, I was able to buy twice the amount of home that I was able to purchase in New Orleans, and I had the security of very good schools and low crime.”

But now that his children are grown and Blackwell is again a bachelor, he finds himself increasingly questioning his reasons for remaining on the North Shore. These days, he said, the cost of commuting to work as manager of the downtown New Orleans Brooks Brothers store is helping tilt the scales in favor of a move.

“With gas prices increasing, it just makes you take a closer look,” Blackwell said last week, when the average price of a gallon of gasoline in New Orleans crossed the $4 mark for the first time. He’s calculated he could save $200 a month by eliminating the roughly 64-mile round-trip drive from his home to work in the city.

For decades, hour-long commutes have for many been considered the relatively meager price paid to work in New Orleans and live on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain, where lots tend to be larger, schools better and crime less commonplace.

But gas prices increasingly are prompting some to re-evaluate.

At this point, evidence of the shift is largely anecdotal.

Real estate market figures suggest there has yet to be a large-scale migration away from the North Shore back to the city. While housing sales are on the decline across much of the metro region, they remain relatively stable in western St. Tammany Parish, which experienced the smallest decrease in the New Orleans area in the number of homes sold from April 2007 to the same month this year, according to the New Orleans Metropolitan Association of Realtors.

“I haven’t seen any huge jump in people moving back or forth” because of the cost of commuting, NOMAR President Michael Indest said. “Down the road,” he added, “you might see a trend toward that.”

Some observers predict city dwelling will grow more popular nationwide in the coming years, particularly if energy prices continue to rise as many analysts expect. Urban planning, business and real estate experts on both sides of the lake disagree as to whether the price of gas will lead to anything more than a trickle of former North Shore residents moving back south to New Orleans.

Pointing to high-profile examples such as Chevron, which recently relocated its headquarters from downtown New Orleans to the outskirts of Covington, some predict high gas prices will have the effect of further draining the city of businesses and residents as employers head north to be closer to their employees. Of the 550 employees Chevron housed at its former Gravier Street offices, the company said half commuted from the North Shore.

“I could imagine that over time, because it’s got superior schools and a fairly good quality of life, more employers would consider making the North Shore home,” said Ivan Meistovich, director of the University of New Orleans Real Estate Market Data Center.

Meistovich moved to the North Shore 30 years ago and said that while gas prices might cause him to increase his telecommuting time, he hasn’t yet been tempted to move back across the lake to be closer to work.

Fifty-two years ago, the North Shore was little more than a rural retreat for many city residents, a place that appealed primarily to those interested in the country life or those looking for a weekend getaway.

“Abita Springs was a place that people went for the therapeutic nature of the springs that were located there,” Meistovich said. “Covington was its own sleepy area.”
The opening of the first span of the Causeway in 1956 and completion of the second in 1969 changed things dramatically.

“Like most communities around the country, the highway became a road out of the inner city,” said Billy Fields, director of UNO’s Center for Urban and Public Affairs. “As gas prices remained low, it seemed like a real option to live over there and commute across” to work in New Orleans.

Fields is among those expecting high gas prices to spur a return to the city, as the promise of a less fuel-intensive lifestyle overrides some of the city’s less appealing attributes.

“What Americans will really want in the coming years are walkable communities,” Fields said. “Where New Orleans has its real strength is that we fit that type of model.”

“Gas prices are on the minds of the entire population right now,” said Darryl Glade, a Realtor with Re/Max New Orleans. “You have discussions about gas prices with all your clients.”

Although he hasn’t been flooded with clients looking to return to the city, Glade said gas prices are figuring more seriously into decisions about where to live. He pointed to two clients living in Slidell and Mandeville now looking to move back to New Orleans.
Although the cost of commuting across the lake to work “is not the primary reason,” Glade said, “it has become a much more important part of their reason for moving back.”

Chris Smith, a Realtor with Prudential Gardner in New Orleans, said gas prices are providing one more justification for a return to the city for those tired of the suburban lifestyle.

“They moved to the North Shore, to Covington, to Slidell or what have you … and there’s just not enough of what they really want to do there,” Smith said. “Now that gas is so high, it’s just really more of an incentive to want to move here.”
Blackwell, for one, is considering putting his Slidell home on the market in the fall, after he finishes making some repairs.

“I would probably move into the Warehouse District or Uptown,” he said. Ideally, he said, his new home would be “almost in walking distance of my business.”