Is Baton Rouge the Right Place for You?

Moving to a new city can be daunting, especially when there are many areas that you know nothing about. Baton Rouge is no exception. With a population of about 231,500 people and 79 constituent neighborhoods, Baton Rouge is the second largest community in Louisiana. Baton Rouge is home to a mixed demographic of white-collar and blue-collar jobs, and there is a nice balanced dynamic between metropolitan city and college town.

The thousands of students who arrive on campus every fall will find that Baton Rouge has plenty of amenities and opportunities for them, while residents of Baton Rouge enjoy the lectures, music, art, and economic trickle-down that colleges typically provide. The LSU student population is large, as well as the alumni, so the local population grows significantly on football season home game weekends.

Baton Rouge attracts residents of all ages. Not only is Baton Rouge a city with many college students, but it also retains many recent graduates who are looking to start new careers, creating a very large population of people who are young, single, educated, and upwardly-mobile. That’s because Baton Rouge is full of single people in their 20s and 30s and who have undergraduate or graduate degrees and are starting careers in professional occupations. This makes Baton Rouge a pretty good place for young, educated career starters looking to find many people like themselves, with good opportunities for friendships, socializing, romance, and fun.

Additionally, those young professionals often marry, have kids, and settle down here, transitioning into the family friendly parts of Baton Rouge that are scattered throughout the city. This young professional demographic also contributes to the overall education level of residents in Baton Rouge. Baton Rouge is substantially better educated than the typical community in the nation, which has 21.84% of the adults holding a bachelor's degree or graduate degree: 32.73% of adults in Baton Rouge have a college degree.

When it comes to the economy and cost of living, the per capita income in Baton Rouge in 2010 was $24,048, which is upper middle income relative to Louisiana, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $96,192 for a family of four. But just like any major city, there is a wide range of incomes, and Baton Rouge has the full span of poor and wealthy residents.

If you are thinking of moving to Baton Rouge and calling this capital city home, be sure to research school zones, commuter areas, and other factors to see which neighborhood is just right for you