Digital Billboards

Video L.E.D. screens with images of musicians are going up throughout Lincoln Center as part of the overall look and feel of the concert hall.

Digital billboards with flashing and changing images are being outlawed in cities across the country.

That's what citizen groups are calling digital billboards, saying they area a safety hazard for distracting drivers. States around the country are grappling with how to regulate the glowing signs.

The increasing ubiquity of screens in our daily lives and architecture changes the way we experience the built environment, argues Christopher Hawthorne.

The glow of digital billboards around Los Angeles is irritating residents, and after a recent court ruling putting a moratorium on new ones, locals are pressuring the city council to remove existing billboards as well.

A proposal to create a new outdoor advertising district in San Francisco has some locals anticipating a retail revival, while others dread the possible billboard blight.

In San Francisco, the mid-Market St. area has struggled for decades with blighted conditions. An area property owner thinks that digital billboards could solve the problem, and has put a proposition on the local ballot to get them built.

A federal judge has allowed a citywide ban on new digital billboards and building-sized supergraphics to continue.