Ghetto Tracker App: Helps the Rich Avoid the Poor

[gblowfish]

Want to avoid the poor at all costs?
There's a app for that!

http://tinyurl.com/lep99cu

In less than 24 hours, a new app tactfully titled Ghetto Tracker--a service seeking to help people identify safe areas in unfamiliar cities--has already garnered enough backlash to prompt an immediate name change to Good Part of Town.

However, the PR move may not do much to alter the public's reception of the app, which critics are slamming as a racist, classist app for helping the rich to avoid the poor.

The app functions by allowing locals to rate the safety of different parts of a given area. According to The Week, the original launch of the page featured a white family of four smiling alongside the app's promise to show users "which parts of town are safe and which ones are ghetto, or unsafe."

In addition to the name change, all mention of the word "ghetto" has been removed from the site. The site now features an ethnically diverse family on its homepage.

In an email sent to Gawker, the app's team said it changed the name in response to emails from a woman whose family had been contained in an actual World War II ghetto and one from a man who grew up in a struggling area and went on to graduate from college and overcome his upbringing.

"I can't be held responsible for the assumptions people may make in regards to factors like race and income," the letter to Gawker continued. "I've seen comments on blogs and in twitter that are trying to say this is encouraging racism or social stratification and that was never our intention."

But critics have pointed out the app's adverse effects on the community, regardless of the app's intentions.

"It’s pretty detrimental to society when we reinforce the idea that poor or crime-heavy areas are places to be categorically avoided or shamed," David Holmes wrote on PandoDaily. "As if to assume that every person who lives in an area with comparatively high crime or poverty is a criminal, or that these areas are devoid of culture or positivity."

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by vailpass

That would be bad ass. It takes me 15 minutes to get everything set. Would be nice if your app could adjust mirrors too.

Yep, it could adjust anything that modern cars have "presets" for.. which is damn near everything now.

Rental cars is the most obvious use for it, but you could even go one step further and apply it to your own cars (wife's car, kids cars, mistresses' cars).

The problem is that you'd pretty much have to get the car companies on board, not sure there would be an efficient way to make an after market add on.

Still.. I thought it was a good idea.

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by HonestChieffan

If you need an app for this you are a ****ing nitwit.

Again, not true. Sure, in many if not most places things like this are obvious. But travel around enough and there are certain cities where the "bad areas" will sneak up on you. It's especially relevant in areas where people might be out drinking... very often the cool/fun place to drink will be on the border of a shady area.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

Yep, it could adjust anything that modern cars have "presets" for.. which is damn near everything now.

Rental cars is the most obvious use for it, but you could even go one step further and apply it to your own cars (wife's car, kids cars, mistresses' cars).

The problem is that you'd pretty much have to get the car companies on board, not sure there would be an efficient way to make an after market add on.

Still.. I thought it was a good idea.

Our cars have presets for seats and mirrors, I think it goes up to 3 different drivers. But not radio, etc. Those presets remain constant.

[Kaepernick]

In 1997 I rode a motorcycle on an 11 week tour of the USA beginning and ending in San Francisco. After crossing the Mississippi, ever time I got off a freeway, I ended up in a housing project. I mean every damn time. New Orleans French Quarter. Charleston. Alexandria. Boston. Connecticut. Chi town. Gary Indiana. Every damn time.

I aired up the bike tires in Charleston and there was a little ghetto kid begging for air for his bicycle when I was done, which I was happy to give him.

Hated walking from my hotel along the projects on the way to the French Quarter each day. Nobody bothered me but I would not have booked that hotel if I knew otherwise.

I need that ap!

[Fairplay]

App that helps prevent injury

[RNR]

It is a good idea and another fail by the OP~

[Frazod]

Originally Posted by Bwana

I wish I would have had it a few times when I took some wrong turns around Baltimore, Trenton and Philly. I ended up in some real shit hole armpit parts of those towns at night.

I remember driving through New York between Virginia and Rhode Island, back when I was in the Navy and before I became urbanized. Heading north on the bottom level of the George Washington bridge, got stuck too far right and ended up leaving I-95 - next thing I knew, I was in some shithole neighborhood in the Bronx. I just remember everything was differing shades of brown; the air, the buildings, the people, the grass. Terrifying at the time, but I later lived in neighborhoods in Chicago that were probably worse. At least I didn't hear any gunshots.

[ILChief]

I know a pic was posted earlier, but this needs video

[mlyonsd]

Originally Posted by RNR

It is a good idea and another fail by the OP~

'So come on down to the ghetto and see the progress we've made. There's an 80% chance you'll make it out unscathed.'

[Frazod]

Originally Posted by gblowfish

"It’s pretty detrimental to society when we reinforce the idea that poor or crime-heavy areas are places to be categorically avoided or shamed," David Holmes wrote on PandoDaily. "As if to assume that every person who lives in an area with comparatively high crime or poverty is a criminal, or that these areas are devoid of culture or positivity."

Yeah, but it's okay to assume every legal gun owner in the country is a criminal, amiright?

[Iowanian]

Originally Posted by vailpass

nice of that guy to tell you. DC turns bad in a hurry.

It was 2-3pm, and he was very clear that in a couple of hours our asses would be in trouble there....because we were white and in a rental car.

[Eleazar]

I'm in favor of avoiding the ghetto and I already do it every day.

[Kaepernick]

I wonder how many ghetto people will buy this ap? They need it.

[cosmo20002]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

Once I was in Washington DC in a rental car with a co-worker and at a stop light a black guy came up to the window and said "what are you doing? Do you know where you're at? You need to get your ass 2 blocks that way before something happens."

We crossed an imaginary line in a city in which I'd never been and weren't safe because of it.

I could easily get into that in St Louis.

OMG...Did you make it out alive?

[cosmo20002]

Originally Posted by Kaepernick

I wonder how many ghetto people will buy this ap? They need it.

Kaepernick---We need one that says if you are in an area that is under UN authority.