Hey @Laura Dalla - I live in CA and have 3 rental units in a small town about 45 min from NOLA, called Hammond. My initial plan was to invest in NOLA and I lived there for 2 months last year, so I drove around every part of the city. Like many people on this thread said, each street is VERY different. In general, the neighborhoods I like are Freret and Gentilly. Watch out for flood zones because it can change your flood insurance drastically. When you check flood zone, make sure you check FEMA, not LSU (like many people recommend) because insurance goes off FEMA. I had a property that showed it was NOT in the flood zone from the LSU flood map, but when I started looking for insurance, the agent told me FEMA had the property in a flood zone. After much research and analysis, we found out that a little sliver of the house touched the flood zone, so technically, it was in a flood zone.
I highly recommend my Property Management company, so message me if you're interested and I'll share their info.
Good luck!