RedZone

lol I live in a red zone and walk around the area at all hours. Guess this is for suburb people that are afraid of everybody. edit: wow this is for rerouting driving directions? like you're so afraid that you can't even drive through downtown Dallas? hahaha

Given the brouhaha over SketchFactor two years ago (see Gothamist story "Tone-deaf App Helps Naive Travelers Avoid 'Sketchy' Neighborhoods") I wonder if / how this is different?

Yeah this is pretty dumb. Of course there will be enough anecdotal evidence of somebody using it and finding some non-stereotypically "shady" area listed as shady, but at its core, as someone mentioned, this is mostly so white hipsters don't accidentally stray too far from the Gentrified Zone, losing sight of Whole Foods and, with it, all hope as well.

I'm not a lover of this because it's segmenting areas of towns that more than likely have great things to offer, but don't get the chance... But at least, there will be no more issues like this:

Two stories that make this product relevant in my eyes: 1) I was on a bus going towards a train station. Train comes every hour, so I *really* didn't want to miss it. Bus got stuck in traffic, so I figured out where we were and realized that I could get off the bus early, run a few blocks, and get to a different train station. Happens to be that those few blocks are the red light district. Would have been nice to know. 2) I used Google Maps to commute from one bus to another (train was under maintenance). Google Maps told me to pick up my bus at a certain address. That address was an abandoned building between a sketchy sex shop and a brothel. There was no bus stop there. All in all, I met some interesting people who were offering interesting services, so I guess that was cool. But truthfully I would have rather avoided that entire area. This entire idea really comes down to your personal definition of "shady". Side note: the people in that neighborhood really don't know how to market themselves well. So if anyone is looking for a new startup idea...

This is a common concept for civic hackathons. It raises some very interesting questions that I believe are good points to discuss as a society. The question I'm most interested in is if one of these will gain popularity.

smh -- this makes me sad.