Billboards Still a Thorn in the Side of Cities

Arwah Mahdawi examines the spreading influence of the city of São Paulo's 2007 Clean City Law:

"In the last decade, from Bristol to Tehran, there been a global movement to un-brand cities – to rid them, at least partially, of adverts. Citizen vigilantes, artists and activists are playing important roles. Etienne Lavie, for example, has re-imagined what cities would look like if classical paintings replaced adverts; a team of developers in New York has created No Ad, an augmented-reality app that strips the New York City subway of ads, replacing them with art; and in 2008 a group of Bristol citizens petitioned (albeit unsuccessfully) to ban advertising from the city."

The work of those citizen vigilantes, according to Mahdawi, has also produced policy change from municipalities:

"In 2009, Chennai, India banned the erection of billboards, and several US states including Vermont, Maine, Hawaii, and Alaska are billboard-free. In 2011, Paris set out plans to reduce the number of ad hoardings by a third. And earlier this year, Tehran replaced all its 1,500 advertising billboards with art for 10 days."

The article goes on to examine a few surprising arguments for keeping billboards, the case made by the aforementioned vigilantes, and the consequences of the decision to remove 15,000 billboards and 300,000 over-sized storefront signs from São Paulo.