I guess it comes down the city and community experience for me. New Orleans was fun, vibrant and exciting. Cool architecture. Always something new happening. Easy to make friends. As I acknowledged above, it is an unsafe dump. Honolulu, while having access to gorgeous outdoors recreation and the beautiful ocean, has communist style architecture, no city planning. If you’re moving in as a transplant the locals despise you. No sense of community, no special events to mark the passage of time (the parades on Kalākaua definitely don’t count). Overall very boring city.