Imagine a Billboard Cemetary

Imagine a city with no outdoor advertising: the billboards become naked skeletons, bare taxicabs and buses drive past leaving you with no final message, there are no posters, or flashing neon, or cardboard cutouts begging from you and teasing you and screaming for your wallet/mind/soul. When you close your eyes and imagine this new city, does it look something like this?











Welcome to Sao Paulo, Brazil, where the mayor has outlawed all outdoor signage. He's been called a fascist for doing so, hailed as a visionary, and generally gotten a whole lot of publicity. But will it work? Will stripping the city bare really mark a "victory of the public interest over private, of order over disorder, aesthetics over ugliness, of cleanliness over trash," as writer Roberto Pompeu de Toledo described the new law?

I can think of three possible arguments against the ban:

1. It restricts free speech.
2. It ignores the possibility that advertising might actually add to the public good.
3. It will put an industry out of work and affect the livelihood of thousands of small businesses.
   

Of course, the first argument goes without saying. But the government knows this already: one city councilman admitted that "some people are going to have to pay a price" for what he described as a "complete change of culture."

And what about the second argument? Is it possible that advertising isn't all evil? (Bill Hicks is rolling over in his grave as I type.) Gustavo Piqueira is a designer who "worries that much of the 'vernacular' lettering and signage from small businesses—'an important part of the city's history and culture'—will be lost." I think this is a valid point. Hand painted signs, storefronts and artisan vendor advertising all add to a visual language that is inevitably unique to the community that produces it. Can it be ugly? Sure. Should it be banned? Not so sure.

And, of course, there is the final question of money; only time will tell if the law will put people out of work and negatively impact Sau Paulo's economy. I suspect it will cause more problems than it solves, although the government does expect to slowly allow a more regulated advertising industry back on the streets.

But more importantly, it raises some interesting questions about what is and what isn't culturally worthwhile. Will stripping away ads while leaving the physical framework really look better? And will it impact consumer habits? I have to admit that I'm excited that a city as large as Sau Paulo has actually taken such a dramatic step to find out, regardless of whether or not it's the right step. Some questions you just can't answer without actually acting first.