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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.
Are they "official" names for neighborhoods?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
They randomly changed Mystreet Street to Mystreet Ave. You don't realize the amount of services that rely on Google for address verification until it starts throwing you errors about an invalid address. Fuck you Google, it still says Street on the signs and even on your goddamn streetview images.
"It's degrading to the reputation of our area," said Tad Bogdan, who has lived in the neighborhood for 14 years.
He should be happy they didn't decide to call it Poop Map!
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Google can just give every SF neighborhood a really awful name. West gash, Buttfungus grove, Trashpile drive, Stank avenue, etc, lowering property values until housing is affordable for mere mortals again!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
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.
Residents Fume?
They should be glad it's not worse. I can imagine much worse names than East Cut which Google could give to a neighborhood.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Because other dickweed outsiders are going to start calling it what google maps calls it, which is incorrect.
s/Cupertino/Fruit Market/
google renamed the street I grew up on by eliding a t. some time later, when the city went to remake the street signs, I'm guessing they checked google maps for the spelling rather than the records and suddenly Patterson became Paterson. At one point my mother had collected a 19th century city registrar book that had all the properties delineated, (and the street name correctly spelled...)
there was even a short period of time when you could use street view to look at an old and new street sign within a block of each other and see both spellings in the wild.
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
Here/Navteq maps have been using township names in my area. Not towns, townships. The township I live in has an obscure name that is completely unrelated to the town name. If it wasn't on my tax bill, I would have no idea it existed. However, Navteq uses that instead of the town name.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
If they had done any research they would have found out that the community benefit district for that area, a local government agency, had renamed the area to the East Cut over a year ago.
They spend tax money on advertising it and probably went to google to get the name to reflect what the city wanted.
This was not some sudden change caused by google, nor an example of how google is a final arbitrator of names.
it is just another daily example of how the new york times is worth for journalism and its only value is in wiping down the street of San Francisco.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/ba...
So you can find the Local vs the Neighbor vs the Foreigner.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
They are trying to improve things. They want to increase the value of neighbourhoods and drive out everything that attracts the homeless.
First thing incomers do is Google up on the neighbourhood reviews and take a stroll through StreetView. If the area looks post-apocalyptic they'll go elsewhere. So they rebrand the neighbourhood with new names so no-one knows any better - Tenderloin becomes SunnyValley.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Well stop making stupid names for your neighborhood.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If you've ever been to SFO quite frankly a number of those names wouldn't be descriptively inaccurate, either.
-Styopa
Better than naming places which flat out don't exist. There's a piece of land in eastern Utah called Big Park which is not referenced on any state databases or on any other mapping service. It is located out in truly desolate country with no services for miles. Going out there without adequate preparations is likely to get someone stranded or killed.
Google Maps is accountable to no one. That is the problem with these corporations.
Don't forget Needle Row and Gangland Heights.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
In the US official place names are tracked by the Census Bureau and the Postal Service.
Many of Google’s decisions have far-reaching consequences, with the maps driving increased traffic to quiet neighborhoods
Too bad. It isn't creating traffic it's a redistribution. Public streets are public.
Pull up Google Maps and zoom in on any neighborhood and you see all sorts of names of 'areas' that don't seem to have anything to do with anything. Where the heck are they even coming up with these?
One thing I've noticed about Google...especially lately...is they are adding some historical names to areas. A prime example is a spot out in California I go to which doesn't really have a mailing address, but Google assigns it location name. That name is based off a long-defunct stop on a railroad on a long defunct rail line.
I've seen this locally too. I've noticed some really old names for areas that I've only seen on maps made before the 1920s. I have to wonder if Google is acquiring really old maps in whatever it's licensing and someone had the idea to toss these names in here. There's one place near me that shows up as "[something] Post Office" when the post office has been gone for well over 100 years. Most people have no clue why this name is showing up till I unroll an antique map and show them.
I know where I live..most neighborhoods "advertise" somehow...they'll have nice name markers. IT came as a lot of neighbors' surprise when they started seeing the name of a place they'd never heard of. "Check your tax maps; that entire area was organized as a sub-division in the 70s before it was built and the name is probably on your deed." Pretty much everyone that lives back there has moved in within the last 20 years and actually never bothered looking over the details of their deeds to see "[redacted] Mills Lot [whatever]" on there.
As someone who is fascinated with maps, it makes perfect sense to me.
The NYT article clearly states this if you had bothered to read it instead of just bashing. From the New York Times
"In San Francisco, the East Cut name originated from a neighborhood nonprofit group that residents voted to create in 2015 to clean and secure the area. The nonprofit paid $68,000 to a “brand experience design company” to rebrand the district."
Massospara Heights
https://www.theatlantic.com/sc...
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
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
Google Maps shows a town about a mile from where I live. Click on the name and no information about the town shows up. Nobody has ever heard of it and few people live within that area. The area is actually part of the city I live in, so it can't be a city or town of its own. Maybe Google found the name in an old history book where there may have been a community by that name a hundred or more years ago.
That's not the only case. I see it repeated all over the state. These are not "dead towns". I'm familiar with dead towns. I have a book that lists every dead town in the state. They may be old communities that Google "thinks" are towns.
Has anyone else noticed that the Phoenix area seems a bit over the top with the neighborhood names? I live in NYC and don't know Phoenix well, but it seems like every 30 - 100 houses have their own name. People can't really use these, right? Just take a look Pueblo Hermoso, for instance, looks like it's about one building, and appears to be some kind of a strip mall. I'm used to NYC, where even a small ("newer," some would say fictional) neighborhood like NoHo might have 5,000 residents, and 100+ buildings, with stores and restaurants in it. Obviously, this is because of the density of Manhattan. However, in Phoenix, are people even using these names? Would a local even know where "Henry Leo Place" is? Would love to have a local weigh in.
Disagreeing with me does not mean you get to mod me troll.
I think this would just build up demand amongst hipsters to live in a place with a cool name.
And West Gash is a real place. Well, real in a game anyway.
Hey guy, what you did there was say a bunch of racist shit, and then throw in an almost racist thing so that you could then tell us it isn't and blame us for being racists. Racism was on YOUR mind. YOU had to "explain" your own damned post. That's a pretty good indictaor that you are being racist. Just like when someone starts a sentence with "I'm not racist but...". If you respond, you'll claim it was a joke, like most racists do, but it wasn't even remotely funny. AND fixating on Bronies seems to indicate that not only do you have some racial resentment, but you apparently don't care for gay or girly guys either. Furthermore, you're bitching about them thar furriners not speaking engish. That alone shows what's really on your mind. Why are YOU thinking about race all the time? Why are you jealous of the sparkles?
They should rename SF to Frisco.
I'm fairly annoyed that Nextdoor has given my neighborhood a random name based on one of the minor roads on the other side of the highway. It's a traditionally black neighborhood with a distinctive official name, and clearly Nextdoor didn't do any research before renaming it.
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