Welcome

Hi! My name is Ben Kercheval, and this blog is my final project for the class called Urban Geography I took at Avalon School, located in St. Paul, Minnesota. Throughout Urban Geography, we have studied many different topics relating to geography in urban areas, such as: blacklisting/redlining, density, urban renewal, architecture, and urban design. These topics only begin to scratch the surface of the wealth of information available on this topic.
Recently, I attended a service trip to New Orleans, Louisiana in order to tutor students at Martin Luther King Science and Technology Charter School in the Lower Ninth Ward. The dropout rate from middle school to high school was so high, they needed outside help. I used this trip as an opportunity to research several questions I will cover in this blog. Those questions are:

1- How does the physical environment of New Orleans affect the city, and how does the city affect the physical environment?

2- How has man affected the ecosystem of the New Orleans area, and what is the feedback of that?

3- How did Hurricane Katrina affect the spatial placement of blacks, whites, and peoples of different income levels?

I will allot one blog entry per question.
I got the idea for these questions from a packet entitled "The Urban Mosaic" that I received in Urban Geography, that talks about different aspect of city planning and environments. I hope you enjoy what I have to share!

~Ben