Is New Orleans really a good place to raise a family?

New Orleans is being praised as a good place to raise a family, and the reasons why may surprise you.

The real estate web site Home.com has the city in its top ten, ranking sixth out of 50 U.S. cities. The criteria includes school quality and crime, something that usually works against us.

“Some of the areas that used to be dissatisfiers, like crime and schools , that the progress that we know that we’ve been making, is beginning to be recognized and show up in the data,” said Michael Hecht, president of GNO Inc. president Michael Hecht. “It is kind of stunning because the criteria, those haven’t changed, but we certainly have not seen us in this formal way recognized as a top ten place to raise a family and have children.”

Hecht says the city is poised to be the first urban school district with no failing schools, and the number of homicides in New Orleans is at a 40 year low. And Hecht says it helps combat the notion that New Orleans is strictly an adult playground of alcoholic beverage-sellers.

“For us to be able to now have something to back up the fact that, for example, Mardi Gras is really not four blocks of Bourbon St. but is the greatest family holiday of the year, this is going to be a very useful tool for us,” he said.

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