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As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

nytimes.com

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Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#51

Post by ryandrake »

paidleaf wrote: post #35
sonnyblarney wrote: post #3

Because of the power of mind share, Google has the power to control borders. The border between Israel and the West Bank is an odd one. 'Both sides' have their view of it. But if 7 Billion people on planet earth grow up seeing one version of the border, it's what they will come to believe as 'true' and effectively support - particularly those in modern nations that might have influence. China is aware of this and the…

> China is aware of this and they control any maps their citizens will ever see. Everyone is aware of it. Maps have always been political. Maps and borders are political creations. Why is it that whenever a controversial topic comes up, people always bring up china? Every HN thread that has a controversial topic, someone always sneaks in a reference to china? > "Of course all that ocean between Philippines and Vietna…

It's not just borders. When you produce a map for the China market, you need to make certain islands prominent, and physically larger than they actually are, because South China Sea Politics. I can't find a link to cite, but this is well known among people in the mapping business.

Even their GPS coordinate system is different than the rest of the world. Most of the world has settled on WGS-84, but when you display GPS points on a map of China, you need to convert them to their own somewhat randomly-obfuscated coordinate system [1], and display all map data in that datum as well.

Because of these kind of special-snowflake rules, when you're making any kind of geographic software, you usually have to make two versions: One for China and one for everyone else. Not unlike dealing with the USA's insistence on using imperial measurement systems while most of the rest of the world has standardized on metric.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_dat...

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#52

Post by sonnyblarney »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #30
sonnyblarney wrote: post #3

Because of the power of mind share, Google has the power to control borders. The border between Israel and the West Bank is an odd one. 'Both sides' have their view of it. But if 7 Billion people on planet earth grow up seeing one version of the border, it's what they will come to believe as 'true' and effectively support - particularly those in modern nations that might have influence. China is aware of this and the…

It can be helpful to look at a map of the world with no borders drawn on it and remember that (apart from natural boundaries such as oceans) border lines are entirely arbitrary with no inherent meaning. And also to look at past maps of the world when the borders looked quite different.

"border lines are entirely arbitrary with no inherent meaning."

The have plenty of meaning.

Nations are not plots of geography - they are groups of people.

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#53

Post by mijamo »

DanAndersen wrote: post #48
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be helpful to look at a map of the world with no borders drawn on it and remember that (apart from natural boundaries such as oceans) border lines are entirely arbitrary with no inherent meaning. And also to look at past maps of the world when the borders looked quite different.

With that mindset, what makes oceans "natural boundaries" with any meaning? It's all just collections of atoms that humans socially assign meaning to.

"meaning" is always socially assigned (or god's design for those you believe it).

But there is a huge difference between natural boundaries and human boundaries: one can be measured and objectively represented. You can measure heights and make a map of the earth with different colors for mountains, oceans etc. It could all be done by a machine without any human intervention, and represents useful physical differences on Earth.

On the other hand nobody could draw a map of countries' borders without talking with human societies, and no map can be objective or exact. In addition, those borders often are not even visible on the field, and in most border you can just cross and not even realize you are in another country (on roads you have border control, but most borders are just rivers, forests, fields, mountains, deserts without any remarkable feature).

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#54

Post by dsnuh »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #20
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…

Doesn't seem unreasonable at all. Guy calls his apartments Silver Lake Heights, his tenants tell their visitors they live in Silver Lake Heights #4, visitors punch that in their phones but can't find it, get the street adress, and a couple enterprising 'local guides' suggest a place name.

The guy's apartment building isn't called Silver Lake Heights, what he did was start using the term "Silver Lake Heights" to describe an area previously known as "Silver Lake".

Realtors often drive the naming of new "neighborhoods", especially if it is lower class area that they want to gentrify. You know, branding.

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#55

Post by dilap »

bcoates wrote: post #45

Heroically buried lede 80% of the way down: 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. The nonprofit paid $68,000 to a “brand experience design company” to rebrand the district. [...] and one of the East Cut nonprofit’s board members is a Google employee. Inverted pyramid is for those other newspapers I guess

Yeah, the top half of the article is all-but-lying to you, strongly implying that Google just created the name out of mid-air. Which is typical newspaper/NYT behavior.

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#58

Post by dsnuh »

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…

I'm in San Diego, and with the housing prices, I'm sure it's a constant search for areas that gentrifiers can afford. The last neighborhood to pop was Barrio Logan, which used to be a very rough neighborhood. Now it's yoga shops, art collectives, kombucha, and other stuff hipster yuppies need to have around them.

Sure, there's still graffiti and taco shops, but it's commissioned art and mango-chutney-glazed-pork-belly-kimchi tacos now.

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#59

Post by ThirdFoundation »

jdietrich wrote: post #18

Most maps are deliberately inaccurate in subtle ways. You can't copyright facts, so cartographers use fictional places and deliberate errors to protect their work. If these features appear on another map, then it's reasonable to assume that they were plagiarised. Historically, cartographers have often created settlements or roads where none actually exist; inventing fictional names for districts or mis-spelling some…

I always liked the story of Agloe, NY. It became an actual landmark after being invented to catch plagiarism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agloe,_New_York

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_settlement

Re: As Google Maps Renames Neighborhoods, Residents Fume

#60

Post by mbell »

larkeith wrote: post #50
antoncohen wrote: post #32

Why is this Google's fault? I walk through The East Cut nearly every day, and I admit I was confused by the rebranding. But it wasn't done by Google. There are people cleaning the sidewalks in East Cut shirts, banners that say East Cut, real estate companies that call it East Cut. It would be a little weird if Google ignored the name. Yes, "The East Cut" is a strange name. But that area as never part of South Beach (…

It's somewhat problematic when Google starts to become an arbitrator of real-world boundaries, as there is functionally no oversight or recourse for those affected. Google was not appointed by the residents, is not incentivized to avoid damaging changes, and is functionally impossible to hold responsible - they're an opaque monolith to anyone who tries to effect change or revert their decisions, and their black box-e…

From the article:

> 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. The nonprofit paid $68,000 to a “brand experience design company” to rebrand the district.

> Mr. Robinson said his team asked Google to add the East Cut to its maps. A Google spokeswoman said employees manually inserted the name after verifying it through public sources.

The residents voted to create a non-profit to improve the area, the board of the non-profit voted on the name and then asked google to add it to the map. What is the problem here? How is google in any way at fault?

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