Of course, that is a centralized option, but, otherwise, the application could not function fully without it.

Or could it?

1. You can do it with tags (for example put a tag with x<longitude>y<lattitude>
2. You can use fields in the json_metadata and search/filter on it with AskSteem. Distance is easy its just sqrt( |x1 - x2|² + |y1 - y2|² ) (assuming earth is flat)

Another thing... please serve it as a single page app. It needs to work with file://, IPFS, DAT, etc. You will need to use #s in your routes.