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As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: For decades, the district south of downtown and alongside San Francisco Bay here was known as either Rincon Hill, South Beach or South of Market. This spring, it was suddenly rebranded on Google Maps to a name few had heard: the East Cut. The peculiar moniker immediately spread digitally, from hotel sites to dating apps to Uber, which all use Google's map data. The name soon spilled over into the physical world, too. Real-estate listings beckoned prospective tenants to the East Cut. And news organizations referred to the vicinity by that term.
"It's degrading to the reputation of our area," said Tad Bogdan, who has lived in the neighborhood for 14 years. In a survey of 271 neighbors that he organized recently, he said, 90 percent disliked the name. The swift rebranding of the roughly 170-year-old district is just one example of how Google Maps has now become the primary arbiter of place names. With decisions made by a few Google cartographers, the identity of a city, town or neighborhood can be reshaped, illustrating the outsize influence that Silicon Valley increasingly has in the real world.
"It's degrading to the reputation of our area," said Tad Bogdan, who has lived in the neighborhood for 14 years. In a survey of 271 neighbors that he organized recently, he said, 90 percent disliked the name. The swift rebranding of the roughly 170-year-old district is just one example of how Google Maps has now become the primary arbiter of place names. With decisions made by a few Google cartographers, the identity of a city, town or neighborhood can be reshaped, illustrating the outsize influence that Silicon Valley increasingly has in the real world.
Rincon Hill, South Beach and SOMA are all distinct neighborhoods, not different names for the same area as the article insinuates.
Real estate agents here try to rename areas all the time into 'micro neighborhoods' for out of towners who would, for example, rather move to 'Eureka Valley' than 'The Castro'. This isn't anything new and I would question whether Google did this and real estate agents followed, or if it's the other way around.
People that actually live here now and have lived here for any mount of time would never deign to utter the words "South Cut". That's just a stupid name in and of itself and has no meaning.
In many large and medium sized cities they are official names, and the neighborhoods can have local councils for things like events, signage/decorations, historic building management, etc. Example from San Diego CA
Are they "official" names for neighborhoods?
Most definitely. For example, there were fierce battles in San Jose over whether to call the Vietnamese area Little Saigon, Vietnamese Business District, or Saigon Business District, which led to protests and attempts to recall a city council member. Sometimes these battles are political, as with the naming of the Vietnamese area in San Jose. Sometimes the battles are cultural, as with the Koreatown naming push in Santa Clara. There was pushback from the non-Koreans in the area to calling the entire area Koreatown. In the end, the city decided not to officially designate the area as Korean. However, someone at Google decided to do the opposite, and so Koreatown shows up not only in Google Maps but also in the search results.
Google has massive power to change language, names, and thinking. For example, a short while ago, Google Maps navigation suddenly started using the term "slip road". From the context, it was obviously talking about on and off ramps to highways, but it would always say slip road. I finally looked up the word and saw that it was a British term. However, Google has broadened the recognition of the word at least to the US.
You need to get a life if your identity hinges on the correct naming of your residence.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
This is like if Google just suddenly started calling Hell's Kitchen something else. Or renamed SOHO for no reason.
Except that as the article notes, the name was actually created a few years ago by a neighborhood nonprofit steering group that residents voted for: The East Cut name originated from a neighborhood nonprofit group in San Francisco that residents voted to create in 2015 to clean and secure the area.
Google didn't just suddenly rename it for no reason. The issue is more subtle than that; in previous times, the neighborhood council decision would either be ignored or take a long time to spread and catch on. With Google's ubiquity, changing it on Google maps has an immediate effect. Whether that's bad and jarring or good and avoids ambiguity, it's certainly new and different.
rage, rage against the dying of the light