Today, via CityLab, we bring you a Bay Area map that's sure to offend. In fact, CityLab calls it "profane," and rightly so. Yet, it's like the proverbial train wreck, you can't look away. The map was created by Sasha Trubetskoy, a student at University of Chicago, using Urban Dictionary judgment calls. Based on the statements he gleaned from Urban Dictionary, Trubetskoy called parts of San Francisco "the most beautiful city in the world." That was the gentle treatment. Pacifica was labelled "Pathetica," Corte Madera is called "Corte Maghetto," and Redwood City is renamed "Deadwood City."
Although Trubetskoy lives in Chicago, he claims to have friends in the Bay Area. That's pretty thin standing to be labelling San Francisco State a "pimp-ass school" and University of California, Berkeley "University of Competitive Bastards."
He saves the most offensive statements for the small print, where judgements are made about the smell of certain areas, the drug use of some neighborhoods, and comments about race and class.
The views are sure to infuriate many, but Trubetskoy told CityLab that they are much more positive than those on his previous map of New York. He says: "I noticed right away how much less negative the entries were when compared with Long Island. Perhaps this says something about the culture of the Bay, as well as the history. With a lot of recent development, neighborhood tensions are not as entrenched as on Long Island. Combine this with the mellow, easygoing Californian stereotype and you get a lot of dictionary entries that are actually quite positive."
Tell that to the people who live here.
· A Judgmental 'Urban Dictionary' Map of San Francisco [CityLab]
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