People moving to New Orleans from somewhere else usually didn't plan it. They came for a long weekend or a friend's wedding, and something about the place got under their skin. A year later they're signing a lease in the Seventh Ward and arguing about which snowball stand is best like they were born here.
Blake Haney, who started Dirty Coast, has a name for these folks. He calls them Nola Converts. And he's said something a lot of natives wouldn't: "These folks knew the city much deeper than I did."
We've been watching Nola Converts walk into our shops on Magazine Street and Chartres Street for twenty years. Some are on their first trip and don't know it yet. Others moved down a decade ago and come in to buy a shirt for a cousin back home who still doesn't get it. This one is for them, and for anybody who's on the fence.
How Many People Are Actually Moving Here?
More than you'd think. According to The Data Center's July 2026 report, about 7% of Orleans Parish residents in 2024 had moved into the parish within the past year, up from 3% in 2004. Over half of those new arrivals came from outside Louisiana.
So the Convert is not some rare bird. Walk into any bar on a Tuesday and there's a decent chance the person next to you grew up in Ohio or a suburb of Atlanta and is now very serious about their red beans.
The city is also smaller than it was. The Data Center counts 484,674 people in Orleans Parish in 2000 and an estimated 362,154 in 2025. New people coming in doesn't erase that history, and the good Converts know it.
What Draws Them In
Ask ten Converts why they stayed and you'll get ten different answers, but a few keep coming up behind the counter.
The music is the obvious one. A brass band shows up on a random corner and nobody seems surprised. You can follow a second line on a Sunday afternoon for hours. Most American cities don't have anything like that, and once you've walked behind a band with a beer in your hand, a regular weekend back home starts to feel a little thin.
Then there's the food, and more than the food, the way people talk about it. Lunch conversations here are about dinner.
And there's the pace. New Orleans runs late, and it runs on relationships. For somebody coming from a city where you can live next to someone for six years and never learn their name, being called "baby" by the woman at the corner store is a lot to process. Some people bounce off it. The Converts lean in.
What the City Teaches Them
Here's where it gets interesting, and where Blake's line about Converts knowing the city deeper starts to make sense.
People who grew up here can take the place for granted. You don't think about why there are tombs above ground or why your grandmother says she's going to "make groceries." It's just home. Converts don't have that luxury. They show up curious, and curiosity in this city gets rewarded. They read the history of Tremé. They learn who the social aid and pleasure clubs are and what it costs to put a parade on the street. They find out why the neighborhood they moved into looks the way it does.
A few lessons most of them learn the hard way:
- Directions here are River, Lake, Uptown and Downtown. North and south won't help you. We made a shirt about it because people kept asking.
- The heat is not a phase.
- You will be late, and so will everybody else, and the party will still be going.
- Hurricane season is real, and the people who have lived through a few have a lot to teach you about getting ready.
- Being a good neighbor matters more than being a fun one.
That last one is the big one. The Converts who last are the ones who figure out that New Orleans is not a backdrop. It's a place where people have been living and fighting for their blocks for generations. You get to join that. You don't get to remodel it.
Moving to New Orleans From Somewhere Else, the Right Way
If you're seriously thinking about it, start with our practical guide, So You're Moving to New Orleans. It covers neighborhoods, flooding, insurance and the other things nobody puts on a postcard.
Then do what the best Converts do. Spend real time in a neighborhood before you sign anything. Mid-City is a good place to start; we wrote a whole local's guide to it. Go to a neighborhood bar on a weeknight. Listen more than you talk for a while. Learn the names of the people who've been there longest.
And don't try too hard. Nobody needs you to say "where y'at" on day one. Our guide to not looking like a tourist will save you some embarrassment, but people here can spot sincerity pretty quickly. That counts for more than getting the slang right.
Once You're In
Something happens to Converts after a few years. They go back to wherever they came from for a holiday and catch themselves complaining that the food is bland and the bars close early. They start telling friends back home that they have to come for Carnival. They get a little defensive when somebody on TV gets the accent wrong.
That's usually when they come in looking for an I Like New Orleans Better shirt. It says the quiet part out loud.
And if life eventually takes them somewhere else, which happens, they carry it with them. Blake sketched the phrase "Be A New Orleanian, Wherever You Are" on a sticker at Mello Joy coffeehouse in Lafayette during the Katrina evacuation, and it's still one of the things we're proudest of. It came out of the evacuation, when a lot of people who were born here had to leave. Over the years it's turned out to fit the Converts too. You can find it here, and read the full story behind it.
Moving to New Orleans From Another State: FAQ
Do a lot of people move to New Orleans from other states?
Yes. The Data Center reports that in 2024 about 7% of Orleans Parish residents had moved in within the last year, and more than half of those newcomers came from outside Louisiana.
What do locals call people who moved to New Orleans?
"Transplant" is the common word. At Dirty Coast, Blake Haney calls the ones who fall hard for the city "Nola Converts," people who visited once and never left.
How do newcomers fit in?
Spend time in your neighborhood and learn the history of the place you moved into. People notice when you show up for the city instead of just enjoying it.
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