Google Street View's Unmappable City

Jason Kebler· Host0:00

[upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to the 404 Media podcast. As a reminder, 404 Media is a journalist-owned company and needs your support. Subscribers get bonus episodes, bonus segments, and early access to interview episodes like this one. To subscribe, go to 404media.co. I'm Jason Kebler, and this week I'm talking to documentary filmmaker Chris Parr. Chris goes by Chris the Producer on YouTube and has made a number of short tech documentaries that I've really liked. This week, I'm talking to him about a video he made called I Mapped Google's Only Secret City, which is about a Google Maps anomaly I had no idea about until I saw his video.

Chris Parr· Guest0:41

[upbeat music] In just eighteen years, more than ten million miles driven across one hundred countries using cars, planes, and camels, stitching over twenty-two billion images together gives us all access to planet Earth. Except for one place.

Jason Kebler· Host0:59

Chris grew up near a town called North Oaks, Minnesota, which is one of the richest, most exclusive towns in Minnesota. It's also the only city in the United States that is not on Google Street View. This is because of the way the town is set up. The entirety of the town is owned by the people who live there, and there's no city-owned property. Even the roads are owned by the people who live there. This has created a situation where North Oaks has been able to ban Google Street View cars from entering, raising questions about who gets privacy in America and how they get it. Chris set out