São Paulo: A City Without Ads

[sadora]

"In 2007, the world’s fourth-largest metropolis and Brazil’s most important city, São Paulo, became the first city outside of the communist world to put into effect a radical, near-complete ban on outdoor advertising. Known on one hand for being the country’s slick commercial capital and on the other for its extreme gang violence and crushing poverty, São Paulo’s “Lei Cidade Limpa” or Clean City Law was an unexpected success, owing largely to the singular determination of the city’s conservative mayor, Gilberto Kassab."

http://adbusters.org/the_magazine/73...thout_Ads.html

I know that I may be alone on this but I wish we could see, to use an expression from the article, clean cities across Canada. Visual pollution is something that we never seem to worry about though we are constantly bombarded with advertising to the point where it becomes obtrusive. I think it's brilliant for a city this large to take steps towards eliminating the problem, even if it's only on the urban sprawl.

[Bill Bumface]

Man would I be pissed if I had anything to do with the advertising industry. A lot of people just lost their livelyhood.

[MelBridgeman]

i guess you are to young to remember a time with calgary was littered with roadside signs...until the early 90's when laws were passed to get rid of them

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

Man would I be pissed if I had anything to do with the advertising industry. A lot of people just lost their livelyhood.

Nah, they'll just thik of better and different ways to advertise.

[Wookie]

What I really hate is the leaflets left on peoples cars that just end up on the street.

I wish there was a way people could be fined if their ad was found on the ground.

Like a $500.00 littering ticket for everyone found. Although you could pretty much kill a competitor by littering his leaflets everywhere!

[4X4]

Originally Posted by Wookie

What I really hate is the leaflets left on peoples cars that just end up on the street.

I wish there was a way people could be fined if their ad was found on the ground.

Like a $500.00 littering ticket for everyone found. Although you could pretty much kill a competitor by littering his leaflets everywhere!

Don't ever, ever, EVER, EVER, EVER go to Italy, if you really feel this way.

[Barnes]

I like ads in certain cases.



This ad helped pay for the Lougheed Building Restoration.

[JohnnyB]

Alaska has a ban on all roadside billboards, and I think it is fantastic. Billboards are such ugly things, and the absence of them is felt all the more strongly in a place as pristine and beautiful as Alaska. Being in that place, without billboards, and thinking about how it would be with them, is a powerful motivator for wishing they were banned on highways everywhere.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Barnes

This ad helped pay for the Lougheed Building Restoration.

Love the flames jersey.

[sadora]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

i guess you are to young to remember a time with calgary was littered with roadside signs...until the early 90's when laws were passed to get rid of them

I remember that actually and I still think it was a great move. But this is something that even bans advertising on everything from walls to city buses.

[Sylvanfan]

Frick they need to sell advertising and than take that money and add a couple more metro lines in Sao Paulo. What an urban mess that place is, and Brazillians are a viscious bunch as drivers. I seriously think they keep tabs of how many pedestrians they run down. The only good thing about that city is the metro (which doesn't have enough lines) and the night life. Although I suppose it would be interesting to see without the ads. I'll have to go through the few pictures I took of Sao Paulo and see just how many buildings did have advertisments on them. I do remember that there were a lot of billboards along the highways though.