There really are apps for everything nowadays. Our smart phones are capable of just about everything from doing your grocery shopping to picking out your outfit for a night on the town. Now, there’s an app that helps you to avoid “troubled” neighbourhoods and it’s causing a lot of controversy. Details inside!
Have you ever been out on the road and wanted to avoid a sketchy part of town? I’m sure we’ve all been there; well now there is an app that can help you do that.
The ‘Ghetto Tracker’ app (which has since been renamed the ‘Good Part Of Town’ app because of backlash) allows you rate the safety of cities, towns and neighborhoods so that visitors will know where to avoid. The app does not use racial demographics but some say it does help to perpetuate stereotypes and help the rich avoid the poor.
Detractor David Holmes says it’s “detrimental to society when we reinforce the idea that poor, crime-heavy areas are places to be categorically avoided or shamed…..”As if to assume 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.”
Proponents of the app say if an area is known to have a lot of crime then the data speaks for itself and users can draw their own conclusions rather than use stereotypes.