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Want to avoid the ghetto? There's an app for that.
A Smartphone app to help people avoid unsafe neighborhoods has been accused of discrimination.
The application, which is being developed by Microsoft, has already been nicknamed the 'Avoid The Ghetto' app.
Critics say Microsoft 'Avoid the Ghetto' app will damage economies of poor communities
Seeded on Thu Jan 19, 2012 10:37 AM EST
Article Source: the Mail online
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- Public Discussion (20)
It is a terrible idea to further marginalise communities.
- 2 votes
#1 - Thu Jan 19, 2012 10:37 AM EST
Sending lost travelers through a high-crime area adds value to the community?
If the crime statistics are available, why is it wrong to give a traveler the option to avoid areas with higher crime? It is a choice that the individual makes about the amount of risk (to personal safety) that they are willing to assume.
If you were manually drawing a route to your destination, would you go through an easily avoided high-crime area?
- 6 votes
Somehow, I find the concept of improving a community's economy by letting them rob me less than appealing.
- 3 votes
It is a terrible idea to further marginalise communities.
It is a terrible idea to avoid passing along safety information for fear of marginalizing high crime areas.
- 2 votes
Critics say Microsoft 'Avoid the Ghetto' app will damage economies of poor communities
The people created the ghetto and destroyed their own economy. A ghetto app isn't going to do anything more than what has already been done by ghetto people that have ruined their own communities.
Until the people in the ghetto decide to put an end to gang violence, drugs, prostitution, robbing one another and burn down businesses when they don't get their way (Rodney King riots), the ghetto life will always remain.
People in the ghetto are the ones that can make their economy grow when they learn you have to work for it, not take it, and learn to accept the fact that we always don't get what we want.
An app isn't going to create any more harm to the ghetto than the people in the ghetto that made it a ghetto.
I think the app will keep people from mistakenly going or ending up in the ghetto more than anything else.
Just because one is poor, you don't have to live the ghetto life.
- 3 votes
On the flip side.
You have a neighborhood that houses many families and older retirees. Another neighborhood that houses a majority of section 8 and other "undesirables" gets bought up by developers, displacing those people moving them in to the first mentioned neighborhood. This is so the developers can create condos and mixed business strip malls. All of sudden the neighborhood that was minding its own business is littered with shopping carts and pan handlers.
It happens. And sometimes before some app knows what's going on.
It's naive to think you're safe anywhere. Our most famous local serial killer lived in one of our more affluent neighborhoods, and was a military man. If you need an app to leave your house, perhaps you should just stay put.
So please, let Microsoft give you that false sense of security wrapped in a blanket of naivete. I just think the concept is pretty stupid and one sided. I'm not afraid of the ghetto much, or the bad people of color that live there (what? did she just say that?) in high concentration. I'm more afraid of small towns in the middle of no where filled with paranoid red-necks or psychotic inbreeders. Is there an app for that?
- 2 votes
It's naive to think you're safe anywhere. Our most famous local serial killer lived in one of our more affluent neighborhoods, and was a military man. If you need an app to leave your house, perhaps you should just stay put.
Amen to that!! Thank you.
Someone once said: We are only safe inside our heads because, if we feel insecure and fearful, the safest place will still not feel safe!
Well, I am glad I didn't have an app the numerous times I visited America. Otherwise I would have missed out on some wonderful experiences. Somehow, no matter where I join the world, people seem to treat me exactly as I treat them. It could have something to do with not making superior assumptions about them!
My simple belief is that we always get what we expect in life because that is what we focus on.
- 2 votes
You know I don't really care if it's PC or not, if there are more unsafe places to be driving through or getting lost I want to know about it, but that doesn't mean I'm going to jump on my iphone and get this app either.
If you're content driving through areas that are notorious for being dangerous have at it, if I have a choice I'll go around, if I don't I'm locking the door and carring a gun.
Maybe the app should be renamed to "Avoid unsafe areas", because I wouldn't necessarily consider every ghetto a dangerous place. I remember once I lived in New York for a year. I went out to go someplace and somehow got lost and ended up in Queens, scared the piss out of me because I was young and didn't know anything about the area, but I stopped and hollered at some guy and he told me how to get back to Long Island. Then one day my car broke down in the middle of the road somewhere in Long Island don't remember where, but here I am stuck in the middle of the intersection with no way to move. Looked over on the corner and 5 big black guys were standing there so I just raised my hands up and said "well you guys come and help me or you just going to stand there and look at me"? They laughed and ran over and pushed it out of the way for me into a gas station and were even nice enough to look underneath and tell me it was my transaxel. Very nice guys and I appreciated their help.
If I was going to an area that I didn't know well, I would like the info that some areas are more dangerous than somewhere else. Although it seems there aren't that many safe areas at all anymore.
- 2 votes
#2 - Thu Jan 19, 2012 11:17 AM ESTIt is not called 'avoid the ghetto'. That is what the click-whore bloggers have nicknamed it.
- 2 votes
Oh thanks I thought that was really the name of it, I only read what was on this thread, I didn't click on the article.
I still say I have a right to defend myself with the apporpriate info on what areas are more dangerous thereby allowing myself to stay out of them. If I ever get a chance to start traveling I may purchase it.
I had Google Maps route me through a very high crime area about a year ago. There is no way I would have ever placed myself in that neighborhood. But, once the nav sent me in there, I had to rely on it to get me out of there and to my destination.
- 2 votes
I wonder if the app will be capable of distinguishing the timeframes when particular areas are unsafe. I've been to places where I felt perfectly safe walking the streets - during the daytime.
There are a few areas that are unsafe at all times, but those probably are not areas where shoppers or tourists would (or should) be anyway.
In any case, regardless of where you are, it is always a good idea to be alert, and travel with a companion if walking in unknown territory.
- 1 vote
#3 - Thu Jan 19, 2012 11:29 AM ESTI have been traveling for 20 years and would have used this many times. I have no idea how we go from:
"here are places where many crimes occur"
to
"it is racist to pass along this information"
- 1 vote
#4 - Thu Jan 19, 2012 11:39 AM ESTmore faux outrage by the politically correct crowd. Guess what NAACP...I bet you plenty of black people who are traveling would like to avoid crime areas too!
Clean up crime riddled neighborhoods and people won't avoid them! I'm not gonna risk getting carjacked just to be PC. And yes, crime happens everywhere...but it happens alot more in certain areas. And yes, people would like to avoid them!
- 2 votes
#5 - Thu Jan 19, 2012 2:24 PM ESTI really hate this PC BS. Maybe now just maybe if "communities" were not infested with criminals/crime people could actually travel safely through these areas. Anyone who states this is racist doesn't want to admit the racial demographics of these areas. It doesn't jive with the PC nonsense fed by the multiculturalism crowd.
FACTS are FACTS.
- 2 votes
#6 - Thu Jan 19, 2012 5:57 PM ESTExactly, I don't care what ethnic background is the majority in a certain part of town, if statistics show that I'm more likely to be a crime victim there (especially as a tourist, a common and easy mark for street criminals of all types) I want to be able to stay away!
- 2 votes
Dallas tourist Michael McNally, said crime date shouldn't determine whether a neighbourhood is worth visiting
'It may have a high crime problem but have some great cultural, social things you can do there,' McNally told CBS.
And that's great if that is how HE chooses to go place. The app merely acknowledges the fact that other people do things differently.
'It's almost like gerrymandering,'she said. 'It's stereotyping for sure and without a doubt; I can't emphasize enough, it's discriminatory.'
Yes, it discriminates between high and low crime areas, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
- 1 vote
#7 - Mon Jan 23, 2012 6:23 PM ESTBut critics fears the app could damage local economies and steer tourists away from historically significant neighbourhoods- just because they have a high crime rate.
Just because they have a high crime rate? That seems like the BEST reason to avoid these "historically significant neighborhoods." Honestly, what better reason to avoid going somewhere than the heightened risk of being robbed or shot?
- 2 votes
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