Today at my other blog, someone pointed out a new entry in long list of Google Maps mash-ups. Although there have been games developed into the API, this was not one of them.

Gang Maps is a subpage of the website. The artwork and logo (depicting a Sgt. Pepper’s get-together of gang icons that looks like it could be a poster for Homies vol. 800: we’re starting to use Pokemon) suggests a casual interest in the material presented, if not outright glamorization. Juan Galvin is the name associated with the site. A quick Google search shows a Texas martial arts instructor but more importantly, a cop from the Chicago suburb of Glendale Heights who resigned amidst scandal two years ago , including the vague “conduct unbecoming of an officer”. His WHOIS info is done by proxy, but his graphics design page puts him in Chicago, and the WHOIS date on that lists a creation date of about three months after the resignment - seems to be our guy. While we cannot claim to know Mr. Galvan’s whole story, what we can determine is that he has made an application that dangerously toes the line between informative and playful. While this map can claim to provide a service to curious neighborhood members, the greater danger is how this application makes the whole affair of gang turf one step closer into a big video game. Lets examine the picture in whole, shall we? A group of almost exclusively male teen-twentysomethings with spare time and still-ripe imaginations exhibits their creative side by coming up with teams, alliances, avatars and enemies. They battle, they win or lose, and occasionally someone shakes up the back and forth with a new structure or a coup d’etat. That’s right, I’m going to make the balls-out offensive statement that gothy fat gamer kids and inner-city gang members are only virtually steps away from each other. Okay okay, even I won’t say that, but let’s look more specifically at the concept of severance from reality and desensitization.

The housing projects of Chicago, the west corridor, and much of the south side are literally clogging the map as drawn by this website, and although gangs are not brazen about their activities, it is nonetheless still apparent and something that is accepted as routine. There are also kids playing violent video games. I’m not saying the kids are playing Halo, getting some frags, and wanting a bigger taste - no bait for you, parent’s groups! I’m sure there’s plenty of kids mauling the hell out of each other in flash WoW knock-offs - I remember tutoring them at Montefiore. They’re not all going to become GDs. But some - if not many - GDs are familiar with video games, and the internet, and the concept of rocking your opponent. This Google Map is an invitation to take one step further from reality. Laid out in a clear, (presumably) objective, and (most importantly of all) public manner, it could presumably become a point of bragging rights - an internet scoreboard for all of the “teams” to better each other on. While all of that depends on A) the perception that this site will be viewed by an inspirable public/other gangs by gang members and B) the webmasters’ neutrality/commitment to updates, it can only be assumed that the site has the potential to become an incentive to further territorial dispute.

Is this something we should worry about? Is this the grim dystopia future, where we’re only a few years away from running over the elderly for bonus points? I mean, let’s not jump to generalizations here. But as technology develops, and as games reach closer and closer to the visceral thrills denied to us in reality, it stands to reason that reality will occasionally become tempted to reach back in kind.

(Was there a levity clause in the contract? I think I might have just broken it.)