In that I only have 10 more days left before returning to the United States, I have begun to brush up on current Unitedstatians events. More specifically, New Orleans events.

I have been reading some blogs about New Orleans, and realizing that:

A: Oh my god I love that city.

B: I don't think I ever want to live in New Orleans again.

C: People put the most amazing information on their blogs.

I am on mailing list run by Alan Gutierrez of Think New Orleans who connected me to a few New Orleans blogs this morning that were quite fascinating. First, I visited Da' Po Boy's blog who has done GPS murder mapping on his own using yahoo maps. He showed how murders in New Orleans are in specific neighborhoods and even more, how the murders themselves occur in clusters. In my own personal research, I have discovered that deteriorating urban space causes unhealthy activity which degrades the space even more (Hembree et. al.). This is a new line of thought because it was previously thought that poor people destroyed their spaces, not that destroyed spaces caused poverty and dangerous activity. Clearly in New Orleans, we have destroyed spaces.

The second blog I read today is from Ashley Morris, who asks "What Country are You From?", to which she states "New Orleans". I borrowed the title of my blog from her too. The reason I did this is because I am asked where I am from all the time here in Costa Rica since I have an accent. At first I said, "the US", but since the Ticos are pretty savvy about the States, I started saying New Orleans. What country is Dana from? New Orleans (also called Destructo-land)!!