The Memphis Mystery

After 14 months of adding Street View to United States coverage, Google has covered quite a bit of the country. In fact, they have covered almost every metropolitan area in America. Except for Memphis. To quote this Commercial Appeal article, "Huh?"

Google does hope to cover every street in the world eventually, and yes, this includes Memphis. But as to why Memphis has not been covered yet, and places like Billings, Abilene, Springfield (both), and huge areas of Nebraskan farmland south of Omaha, are already available. According to the article, a Google spokeswoman claimed that "Memphis is bit more isolated than than other cities."


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According to this satellite image, Memphis looks pretty big, but to the northwest, there are lots of farms, which isn't too much fun in Street View. However, to the south and east, it appears that there's enough population to cover. Why hasn't Memphis been covered yet? Google says because of its isolation. What could isolation mean? It's a huge city, so why not?

It could be the distance from a Google office. The nearest office to Memphis is in Atlanta, Georgia, and it would still take about 6 hours and 22 minutes to get to Memphis from there. (Thank you, Google Maps directions!)

Memphis isn't the only city that's mysteriously not covered. Seattle hasn't been done yet. However, no need to worry, since Google Street View cars have already been spotted there, and in Baltimore.