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New City without advertising
[link|http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jun2007/id20070618_505580.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_innovation+%2Bamp%3B+design|Buisness Week]
A city stripped of advertising. No Posters. No flyers. No ads on buses. No ads on trains. No Adshels, no 48-sheets, no nothing.

It sounds like an Adbusters editorial: an activist's dream. But in S\ufffdo Paulo, Brazil, the dream has become a reality.

In September last year, the city's populist right-wing mayor, Gilberto Kassab, passed the so-called Clean City laws. Fed up with the "visual pollution" caused by the city's 8,000 billboard sites, many of them erected illegally, Kassab proposed a law banning all outdoor advertising. The skyscraper-sized hoardings that lined the city's streets would be wiped away at a stroke. And it was not just billboards that attracted his wrath: all forms of outdoor advertising were to be prohibited, including ads on taxis, on buses\ufffdeven shopfronts were to be restricted, their signs limited to 1.5 metres for every 10 metres of frontage. "It is hard in a city of 11 million people to find enough equipment and personnel to determine what is and isn't legal," reasoned Kassab, "so we have decided to go all the way."

Very interesting and radical idea. Don't know if this is really a good idea or not, but I certainly applaud their willingness to try.

[link|http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonydemarco/sets/72157600075508212/|Flickr]
Some pictures from Sao Paulo. Looks very weird at the moment because a lot of companies have removed the advertising without removing the billboards yet. I think they would be wise to spend some money on some public artwork to fill some of that space. But I think in the end it will be a better looking city.

Jay
New his visual pollution might be my entertainment
in the middle of a city with some of the largest slums in the world you might think he had other priorities
thanx,
bill
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 51 years. meep

reach me at [link|mailto:bill.oxley@cox.net|mailto:bill.oxley@cox.net]
New For such a splendidly humane idea, he'd best watch his back-
PC (perpetual consumption) Demands perpetual Reminders that happiness is a maxxed-out CC, large closets and a storage area for the stuff enroute to land-fill, to make room for the next delivery.

(Never mind that the trend is: there's less and less time to play with all those toys.)

Cold Turkey .. such an admirable effort, but likely ill-fated.
As population expands mindlessy (still...) guaranteeing the noise, dirt, angst and emotional disconnect of every large city -- it's quite possible that Shopping may be the only appearance-of-gaiety which most can even imagine. And it is assuredly the one that every vendor banks on. And he who doth not vendeth, buyeth, or both - It is All They Have Ever Known.

Without much of an alternative infrastructure to be found, one demonstrating a much more pleasant and Alive way of 'living' -- one with far less crap, and where shopping is not the prime recreation: methinks this experiment is doomed. We're already statistically studied/manipulated automatons, pretty-much over the entire 24 hour selling-time window du jour.

Hope I'm dead wrong on this one. Who Else would try it a second time? (even better prepared)

     City without advertising - (JayMehaffey) - (2)
         his visual pollution might be my entertainment - (boxley)
         For such a splendidly humane idea, he'd best watch his back- - (Ashton)

TILL-AYYYYY!!
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