As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume • Hacker News Board

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#161

Post by Spivak » Thu, Aug 02, 2018, 8:13 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #109

daveFNbuck wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good reason for why the city shouldn't arbitrarily change its official definitions of neighborhood boundaries without also changing budget allocations. Why shouldn't everyone else define neighborhoods however they feel is most useful to them?

Who else should make that decision? Agents will arbitrarily change maps basted on what their current listing are and would happily change them daily. Longer term there is little point changing place names as changing demographics will eventually adjust the meaning of these names even if no lines move on a map.

Nobody/Everybody, if people start calling a region by a name it makes sense to record the usage and put it on the map. Sure, it probably makes perfections and planners twitch but it makes maps more useful.

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#162

Post by protomyth » Thu, Aug 02, 2018, 8:15 PM UTC

hyperberry wrote: post #127

Google puts far too much stock into the "accuracy" of its Maps data. Here's my fun story: in order to verify my dad's website with Google's 'My Business' service (now a defunct product?), they had to mail a physical postcard with PIN code to ensure the address was legitimate. Picking the mailing address was hooked into Maps/ Maps data; a "real" address had to be among their existing database of addresses. Well, my da…

I wonder about this type of stuff since the place I am at now has no mailable address other than a PO Box. During my high school years, I remember ordering packages with "House 313 behind the School" or "House 313 School Loop" to satisfy the place we were order from. The UPS driver would know where to drop it off, and US Mail made you pick it up anyway.

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#163

Post by lotyrin » Thu, Aug 02, 2018, 8:18 PM UTC

hyperberry wrote: post #127

Google puts far too much stock into the "accuracy" of its Maps data. Here's my fun story: in order to verify my dad's website with Google's 'My Business' service (now a defunct product?), they had to mail a physical postcard with PIN code to ensure the address was legitimate. Picking the mailing address was hooked into Maps/ Maps data; a "real" address had to be among their existing database of addresses. Well, my da…

And the reverse, near me, there's a "South Extension Road" South and Road might reasonably be abbreviated: "S Extension Rd." but Google maps just displays "S Ext Rd" and businesses have addresses of "123 S Ext Rd".

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#164

Post by dickbasedregex » Thu, Aug 02, 2018, 8:19 PM UTC

ilamont wrote: post #7

In Los Angeles, Jeffrey Schneider, a longtime architect in the Silver Lake area, said he recently began calling the hill he lived on 'Silver Lake Heights' in ads for his rental apartment downstairs, partly as a joke. Last year, Silver Lake Heights also appeared on Google Maps. Google asleep at the wheel again. Developers wanting to create some tony new "neighborhood" as well as real estate agents attempting to shift…

>Google asleep at the wheel again.

Again? They've been comatose for years. Look how they keep screwing up w/Youtube.

Everything is an algorithm problem to them and when something goes wrong it's always "oops, crazy technology blah blah algorithms". Which is 100% a cop out. Google has been resting on its laurels for a while now. Like Steam, they've shirked all responsibility for their service/platform. Must be nice to do f-all and still print money...

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#165

Post by moorhosj » Thu, Aug 02, 2018, 8:23 PM UTC

abrahamepton wrote: post #93

jrockway wrote: post #76

I feel like the issue here is that there simply isn't any data that definitively maps out where neighborhoods are. I have never been certain where neighborhood boundaries are in any city I've lived in. I remember when I lived in Chicago I looked around for an official source and found one from the city... except the districts had no resemblance to what people were calling the neighborhoods. Meanwhile, real estate typ…

For Chicago, specifically, the closest official equivalent is the 77 community areas ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_areas_in_Chicago ), which definitely don't align with how residents see neighborhood boundaries. That's in part because the CAs were created decades ago by the U of C, and aren't really allowed to change so that longitudinal comparisons can be made using them. Just speaks to how tricky the qu…

The city has boundaries for neighborhoods too [1], they just aren't "official" like the Community Areas.

[1] https://data.cityofchicago.org/browse?q=neighborhoods&sortBy...

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#166

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 02, 2018, 8:24 PM UTC

ErikAugust wrote: post #100

reaperducer wrote: post #73

I deal with this with one of the web sites I maintain. I think, as noted in the article, that it seems Google sometimes uses names from advertisements as if they are canonical. In my case, the city in question puts out a very specific, very legally defined map of each neighborhood, and has for more than a century. But real estate agents make up names for the neighborhoods, or fudge the boundaries to improve selling p…

"I think, as noted in the article, that it seems Google sometimes uses names from advertisements as if they are canonical." --- "Currently the predominant business model for commercial search engines is advertising... We expect that commercial search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers..." - Sergey Brin and Larry Page, 1998 http://infolab.stanford.edu/~ba…

[deleted]

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#167

Post by daveFNbuck » Thu, Aug 02, 2018, 8:26 PM UTC

dickbasedregex wrote: post #157

daveFNbuck wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good reason for why the city shouldn't arbitrarily change its official definitions of neighborhood boundaries without also changing budget allocations. Why shouldn't everyone else define neighborhoods however they feel is most useful to them?

Why shouldn't everyone else pronounce and spell things however they feel is nicest? Because chaos.

People already do that and it works fine.

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#168

Post by moorhosj » Thu, Aug 02, 2018, 8:27 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #76

I feel like the issue here is that there simply isn't any data that definitively maps out where neighborhoods are. I have never been certain where neighborhood boundaries are in any city I've lived in. I remember when I lived in Chicago I looked around for an official source and found one from the city... except the districts had no resemblance to what people were calling the neighborhoods. Meanwhile, real estate typ…

==On some level, perhaps people read too much into neighborhoods.==

I think this is part of the argument the article is making. People who buy real estate put an emphasis on the neighborhood, thus realtors have an incentive to create "new" neighborhoods. West Bucktown in Chicago is an example where realtors they didn't want renters or buyers to think they were in Humboldt Park so they made up a new neighborhood.

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#169

Post by slavik81 » Thu, Aug 02, 2018, 8:33 PM UTC

dickbasedregex wrote: post #157

daveFNbuck wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good reason for why the city shouldn't arbitrarily change its official definitions of neighborhood boundaries without also changing budget allocations. Why shouldn't everyone else define neighborhoods however they feel is most useful to them?

Why shouldn't everyone else pronounce and spell things however they feel is nicest? Because chaos.

I realise it could be a problem if words become unrecognised, but there's already a few spelling variations among neighbours. People are flexible. Heck, they can understand eevn wehn yuo wrte lkie tihs.

You say tomato; I say tomato.

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#170

Post by keane » Thu, Aug 02, 2018, 8:33 PM UTC

In this article, the New York Times, with a bureau in the neighborhood recently renamed, considers what (or who) might function as the authoritative determination of place names for neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times themselves provide the authoritative source of neighborhoods in LA [1], through an extensive project incorporating local feedback and years of their employees' experience covering stories around LA county.

[1] http://maps.latimes.com/neighborhoods/