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Ghetto Tracker - A rating system to help people avoid the bad parts of town

ghettotracker.com

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Re: Ghetto Tracker - A rating system to help people avoid the bad parts of town

#31

Post by mc32 »

nilkn wrote: post #30

So maybe some racist white people might rate any area with black or Hispanic people as unsafe. Hopefully, if the area is actually not bad, some non-racist black or Hispanic people will rate it as such. The positive and negative ratings should cancel each other out in such cases. The areas that end up with negative ratings would have to be rated such by users of all ethnicities, which more or less rules out too strong…

Why don't they just use FBI (or local) crime stats?

Not subject to as much subjectivity. Drawback is that it may not be realtime up to date, but should be good enough.

Re: Ghetto Tracker - A rating system to help people avoid the bad parts of town

#32

Post by mikehotel »

boards2x wrote: post #21
bendoernberg wrote: post #5

Feedback: If your goal was to inspire 100 "what's wrong with tech" articles, you named this perfectly. I would highly recommend changing the name and addressing the problematic aspects of red-lining neighborhoods before you get absolutely hammered by a million bloggers.

Judging by the stock photo here http://ghettotracker.com/about.php (white familiy, in case it'll change in the future), it's quire clear who needs to be afraid, and from whom. I see Compton, California just added. They should simply geotag by ethnicity and save people the need to subjectively "rate" certain areas?

You should have tried to hit refresh. The image is sometimes a white family, sometimes black, and sometimes biracial. Rating areas where people live will always be sensitive (property values, racial discrimination, etc), we do not need to manufacture drama.

Re: Ghetto Tracker - A rating system to help people avoid the bad parts of town

#34

Post by superuser2 »

9999 wrote: post #25
ocfx wrote: post #6

I rated Compton just in case...

You mean you arbitrarily placed a dot in the middle of Compton without regard to what's actually there and whether or not it's actually a dangerous block. Even if you were to ignore the many problems with the very premise of this site (the racially and historically charged name first and foremost) the lack of granularity or verification in reporting would prevent any useful data from being gathered anyway. As other p…

By the crime maps, the Magnificent Mile is the most dangerous area in Chicago. Crime maps are, for the most part, population density maps. See: http://xkcd.com/1138/. You need to compare crime rates to the number of people in the area to get anything meaningful.

By the crime maps, your probability of being robbed at Garfield-Red in the middle of the night is less than that of being struck by lightning in your lifetime. No Hyde Park resident will tell you it's a good or even reasonable idea to be anywhere near it at 11pm. When challenged on the data, they'll argue that few people are dumb enough to ride it at that hour, and that those who do get mugged are unlikely to bother with a police report for a crime which is seen as their own fault and unlikely to ever be solved (or even cared about) by CPD.

Re: Ghetto Tracker - A rating system to help people avoid the bad parts of town

#35

Post by superuser2 »

mc32 wrote: post #31
nilkn wrote: post #30

So maybe some racist white people might rate any area with black or Hispanic people as unsafe. Hopefully, if the area is actually not bad, some non-racist black or Hispanic people will rate it as such. The positive and negative ratings should cancel each other out in such cases. The areas that end up with negative ratings would have to be rated such by users of all ethnicities, which more or less rules out too strong…

Why don't they just use FBI (or local) crime stats? Not subject to as much subjectivity. Drawback is that it may not be realtime up to date, but should be good enough.

Crimes are not always reported, especially when they are seen as relatively minor and commonplace compared to the murders probably also happening that day.

Locals' informal guidelines to stay out of an area where you "don't belong" after dark may be so widely heeded that the number of assaults/robberies is low, but the probability of being mugged or beaten is still high.

Re: Ghetto Tracker - A rating system to help people avoid the bad parts of town

#36

Post by vinautomatic »

And really a lot of you are over blowing the issue that there's white people listed on the page. WHO CARES. What did you first look at that in your racist attempts to point fingers at a supposed different racist? Grow up.

I've seen 9 square mile cities of nothing but white trash and 1 sq mile cities that would give even the worst parts Compton or Camden a run for it's money (and actually is recognized by people in the hood of Compton - I lived in a different part of LA, check out central falls, RI or west warwick, RI).

And no crime maps are not population density maps, either.

A lot of you obviously haven't lived that many places.

And I don't know why the heck I'm defending this but wow some ignorant lack of intelligence on the hacker news boards - sorta disappoints me.

Re: Ghetto Tracker - A rating system to help people avoid the bad parts of town

#37

Post by vinautomatic »

vinautomatic wrote: post #36

And really a lot of you are over blowing the issue that there's white people listed on the page. WHO CARES. What did you first look at that in your racist attempts to point fingers at a supposed different racist? Grow up. I've seen 9 square mile cities of nothing but white trash and 1 sq mile cities that would give even the worst parts Compton or Camden a run for it's money (and actually is recognized by people in th…

However, I do not agree with letting the general public rate places...this is more something people who've lived in quite a different number of environments should be doing...

Re: Ghetto Tracker - A rating system to help people avoid the bad parts of town

#38

Post by boards2x »

mikehotel wrote: post #32
boards2x wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging by the stock photo here http://ghettotracker.com/about.php (white familiy, in case it'll change in the future), it's quire clear who needs to be afraid, and from whom. I see Compton, California just added. They should simply geotag by ethnicity and save people the need to subjectively "rate" certain areas?

You should have tried to hit refresh. The image is sometimes a white family, sometimes black, and sometimes biracial. Rating areas where people live will always be sensitive (property values, racial discrimination, etc), we do not need to manufacture drama.

Does the name change as well, or is it always "Ghetto Tracker", or sometimes "White Suburban Tracker", "Trailerpark Tracker" etc.?

PS Actually double checked. There was only one photo, and this is why I mentioned that in my comment.

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