I don't understand why lansing's being down-voted here. He's absolutely right. It's pejorative when used as a way to reference a place where black people live now, and it's historically inaccurate. The "modern" usage is all since the late '80s; and it came from a term based on enforced ethnic divisions. The fact that a lot of readers here live in parts of the country or the world that don't enforce ethnic divisions along geographical boundaries does nothing to change the fact that those still exist, even in the US, and they are still enforced by white-on-black violence in many cases. The first question that comes to mind is who puts the boundaries of these ghetto into the database? What's Fairfax south of Olympic? What's 120th and Broadway? And the second question is, would stores and businesses within those areas suffer as a result of decreased traffic; what recourse would they have; and what hope would blighted areas have of economic improvement if everyone followed a GPS that steered them around the zone?
This is a disgusting concept and an insult to human dignity. It will turn "ghettos" in the slang sense into more genuine ghettos in the historical sense. And lansing is right to take issue with the term as it's used now, because it's become a light, casual, racist and derogatory way to talk about a certain area, which is definitely used by the white middle class as a stand in for other racist words they don't feel comfortable saying anymore.
[Edit: The fact this was downvoted in less time than it would take a speed reader to finish what I wrote is pretty much proof that either someone's got it in for lansing, or someone's a fuckin racist dipshit. Either way, fuck you.]
[Re-edit: Not only do I stand by my comment, I think the people who downvoted me are cowards. Respond if you have a response, and you speak enough English to communicate it.]
Your comment, even with the edit, takes me about 15 seconds to speed-read (I timed it), and it's short enough to skim-read in about five seconds. And I'm not a particularly good speed-reader. And a lot of people will downvote without reading the whole thing if they feel they've got the gist, though I hope not too many. I think you need to calm down and treat people who disagree with you more respectfully. Your reply is extremely heavy on negative emotion, fairly accusatory and low on solid reason, and that kind of thing does tend to get downvoted here. Hacker News tends to value knowledgeable, factual commentary and reasoning on relevant topics over outrage.
Also, now you're complaining about getting downvoted, which is generally against the rules here and will often lead to further downvotes (because you getting downvoted is always off-topic).
Personally, I think I would find some of what you're saying interesting if you presented it in a way that's more informative and actionable and less angry or defensive. Could this have a negative impact on those neighborhoods? That's an interesting question. I'm not sure if it would (most of the people who travel in the area frequently will already be avoiding them), but it's an interesting question. Unfortunately, rather than exploring this interesting topic, you decided you'd rather hunt racists, which might make you feel all high and mighty but doesn't really advance the conversation.
Perhaps the downvotes are coming from people who find this whole discussion off-topic. Or perhaps you are getting downvoted for your rigid tone or hyperbole.
This is a disgusting concept and an insult to human dignity. It will turn "ghettos" in the slang sense into more genuine ghettos in the historical sense. And lansing is right to take issue with the term as it's used now, because it's become a light, casual, racist and derogatory way to talk about a certain area, which is definitely used by the white middle class as a stand in for other racist words they don't feel comfortable saying anymore.
[Edit: The fact this was downvoted in less time than it would take a speed reader to finish what I wrote is pretty much proof that either someone's got it in for lansing, or someone's a fuckin racist dipshit. Either way, fuck you.]
[Re-edit: Not only do I stand by my comment, I think the people who downvoted me are cowards. Respond if you have a response, and you speak enough English to communicate it.]