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São Paulo’s Outdoor Advertising Ban (2016)
- dakial1 7y agoI live in Sao Paulo and the outdoor ban law now is being "ignored" since it seems not to be enforced anymore. Also, commercial buildings have found loopholes, like leaving huge outdoors and Digital Signage a little behind glass windows to say it is "inside the store".
- deogeo 7y agoA shining example showing that the flood of advertising is not unstoppable. Some US states have also limited it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard#Laws_limiting_billboards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard#Laws_limiting_billbo... Hopefully more will follow.
- hanniabu 7y agoThe streets without all those signs look much more pleasant
- trilila 7y agoAssuming one might feel safe enough to walk on them.
- ulzeraj 7y agoA good number of old cultural signs were destroyed in the process specially in Bairro da Liberdade where Asian migration happened. All those beautiful neon kanji signs were removed. As someone who lives in São Paulo for decades I say that the city is uglier than ever.
- ApolloFortyNine 7y agoIn my opinion not allowing the business to even have their name on their building is a step too far. Removing the billboards sticking out perpendicular to the road looks much better, but this picture that doesn't even have the name of the store on it seems awful [1]. It would be interesting to see numbers for how this affected businesses, especially if those businesses tended to be ones that relied on advertising (food especially). Forcing people to give directions like "look for the big green building next to the blue building" doesn't seem like a positive to me. [1] https://99percentinvisible.org/app/uploads/2016/04/signage-before-after.jpg https://99percentinvisible.org/app/uploads/2016/04/signage-b...
- romaaeterna 7y agoHere is the current location image from Google Maps: https://i.imgur.com/mHRamlx.png https://i.imgur.com/mHRamlx.png They have some window signage and have added back a much more reasonably sized sign with their business name. Wider shot: https://i.imgur.com/RbhV4Ep.jpg https://i.imgur.com/RbhV4Ep.jpg
- Ididntdothis 7y agoI agree. Having the name on the building makes sense. Maybe restrict it to ground level or something similar.
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoIf certain businesses were impacted, where did the demand get displaced to? With restaurants, was it to other restaurants that were more visible or were people more likely to eat at home? If some of the demand for other goods or services, not being a necessity of life as food is, simply vanished, is that a bad thing? Perhaps GDP goes down but efficiency goes up? And what effect does this have on the happiness of the population? These aren't meant to be leading or rhetorical but are interesting to ponder.
- closeparen 7y agoIn that image, the storefronts are still clearly identified with names and logos.
- muxator 7y agoTo put this in context: together with the advertising clutter, a lot of artistic graffitis were taken down in the process.
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoIf there's one thing you can be assured of, it's that removed graffiti will be replaced by new graffiti. Only through prolonged removal each time it reappears do the new attempts stop (or at least get reduced to a trickle).
- spodek 7y agoI fantasize about American cities doing this. Ads don't make Times Square attractive. They make it wretched. I'd love to see the transformation like the London's pictured in the article. > the city would not only lose revenue from absent ads The money would have mostly come from residents, with a bunch of it going to the advertisers, who advertise to increase profits, away from the city. I would see the city gain money. I've seen plenty of billboards for soda and junk food, rarely if ever for broccoli. I imagine the change improved people's health and local farmers' lives.
- PauloManrique 7y agoThe change made our lives worse, as due to lack of proper light, several streets became too dark and violence increased. And no, nothing change about the way we eat.
- specialist 7y agoAdvertising saves lives? Of all the bad things happening in your culture, you attribute it to lack of bill boards?
- mixmastamyk 7y agoThat's the city's responsibility.
- abcpassword 7y agoThis remark is incredibly American.
- barbecue_sauce 7y agoA responsibility they are apparently not taking seriously.
- mixmastamyk 7y agoStill no reason to support ugly advertising.
- ulzeraj 7y agoPaulista here. This clean city law or wathever is translated into destroyed our beautiful Japanese neighborhood (“Bairro da Liberdade”). Besides we are in dire need of economic freedom therefore this is just another hassle among 1000 regulations we have to follow to open up a simple bakery or emporium. I’d rather have our cheerful city back than this trashy version of dusty “there was a banner here 2 years ago” marks all over the place.
- deogeo 7y ago> destroyed our beautiful Japanese neighborhood How? Though even if what you say is true, it must be balanced by the many more neighborhoods destroyed by ads.
- zaroth 7y agoI conjure an image of Chinatown / Japantown sections of a large city, where the signage is a huge part of what sets the area apart, and a very significant cultural display.
- headsoup 7y agoI think in a way, it's a little sad that over-zealous advertising is seen as a cultural 'feature' to be cherished.
- kinow 7y agoPaulistano here too, and nikkei (so pretty much every weekend went to liberdade and sao joaquim). I find it easier to walk around Sao Paulo now. And Liberdade is still a special place with the asian lanterns in the lamp posts, the Bradesco building, and there are stores with Noren and signs. Only difference is that the signs are now proportional to the store facade. And we still have grafitti that helps to keep the city interesting, as well as our Portuguese stone pavement and other little things that make Sao Paulo beautiful even without all the billboards and ads.
- deogeo 7y ago
- holografix 7y agoSão Paulo is an oppressively ugly concrete jungle. Most of the buildings are the colour of what babies would shit if they ate cement all day. Some fresh, colourful, 1st world signs of capitalism would be a welcome improvement. Bring back the huge, 20m x 8m coca-cola billboards showing young attractive people having a laugh against a colourful background. It’d be a welcome respite from the pollution and drizzle.
- whatshisface 7y agoOr, option three, put something there that looks nice.
- kodablah 7y ago> put something there that looks nice The comment you are replying to suggested just that, unless you mean your definition of nice and not theirs.
- klez 7y agoI think the point of the comment you're responding to is you can put nice things in buildings without them being gigantic advertising. I mean, you can still have beautiful, happy people on walls without it being an advertisement for Coca Cola. And you can size it appropriately.
- f00zz 7y agoYou'll get downvoted but it's true. Anyone who thinks a city is better off without the visual pollution of billboards and LED signs has obviously never been to downtown Sao Paulo.
- mixmastamyk 7y agoColorful paint is on display in the photos.
- 7y ago
- dba7dba 7y agoAll of Hawaii does not allow any outdoor advertising. And I think it is wonderful. City Of Los Angeles has regulations on different aspects billboards. BUT, city has no idea idea how many even exist.
- goldcd 7y agoSlightly OT - but https://99percentinvisible.org/ https://99percentinvisible.org/ is a really great podcast series. I believe the notional theme is 'design' (and good design being 99% invisible) - but it's a wonderful mish-mash of stuff that's always interesting, all covered by the exceptional dulcet tones of "Roman Mars"
- PauloManrique 7y agoI live in São Paulo. This initiative was and still is terrible, as propaganda not only works as... propaganda, but also as sources of light during nights. Several streets became way too dark, and violence increased. Also, our Paulista Avenue used to look a bit like Times Square, but now it's just a dead street as the others. All of this just because a politician got mad after seeing a outdoor featuring a couple in underwear (it was a panties ad).
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- andrekandre 7y agomaybe that was an easily avoidable problem to plan for, but i would humbly suggest that maybe a solution would be to install public lighting instead of return the advertisements in order to get proper lighting? just to be clear, i’m not arguing for or against advertising in the open, just replying to the first point
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- whatever_dude 7y agoYour message is full of allegations without citations and is one of the most intellectually dishonest comments I've seen in the subject. Lights do not stop crime in the way you're saying. I've been robbed twice in well lit locations. And a tiny percentage of those billboards were lit. This whole point sounds like reaching at straws without any logic behind it. Avenida Paulista never looked like Times Square. Thankfully, because Times Square is a halogen light hellscape only tourists can stand and for little amounts of time at that. Paulista looks great, and dare I say better than it could have ever looked had it had huge billboards blocking the little sky one can see. This was NOT a politician decision on a whim. Come on. That makes me doubt you've ever lived in São Paulo. This debate was raging for years and only came to fruition after the inability of regulation to have any effect on rampant illegal advertising covering more and more of the sky.
- mc32 7y agoI’m not sure I favor this. Clean buildings can look nice, but they also look a bit sterile. I’m for removing the T bar signs. Imagine Tokyo without the signs and neon. There has to be a workable medium where there is some signage without it becoming obtrusive and garish.
- ufo 7y agoI'm surprised by all the naysayers popping up in this comment thread. Back when I still lived in São Paulo I remember that the Cidade Limpa law was extremely, almost universally popular.
- whatever_dude 7y agoIt was. I worked in advertisement and still can't ignore how terrible the city was with rampant billboards. Attempting to regulate it was not having any effect thanks to easy ways the law could be circumvented by the rich and (legally) powerful. Banning them outright was a breath of fresh air.
- soneca 7y agoIt was and, generically speaking, "no one" thinks twice that it was not a good law all these years after it. But HN attracts a lot of contrarian thinking people. Which is a good thing I think, even if in this matter I am with the majority
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- zaroth 7y agoSeveral comments from people who live there, all strongly condemning the measure for various unintended side-effects, all downvoted to oblivion. Whether it’s encouraging graffiti, removing important light sources which the city did not pay to replace, destroying culturally significant displays, or promoting sterilized monotony in the surroundings, it seems there are several good reasons why outright banning of advertisements might not be the utopian vision some claim it to be. Being surprised to learn about viewpoints which contradict the popular narrative is the best you can hope for from a comment section, if the critique is offered in good faith.
- ufo 7y agoI think it is worth mentioning that in São Paulo people tend to use the word "grafite" for artful murals and drawings and "pixação" for the stuff that is seen as vandalism. (there are some grey areas but that is the jist of it)
- personlurking 7y agoOne of those grey areas is that there's a large portion of people who do pixação that see their art as an art form. As an aside, I remember a short Brazilian documentary on São Paulo's "reverse graffiti" (doing a drawing or mural by skillfully removing dirt from a dirty wall, so that the white spaces create an image) where the police detained the artist doing it, despite the fact he was literally cleaning the wall.
- fiatjaf 7y agoI could see homicide as an art form and it would still be wrong.
- crazygringo 7y agoI had always dreamed about a city without advertising, and couldn't wait to visit São Paulo. And when I did, I was completely shocked to discover... I hated it. Until you experience a lack of advertising, it's hard to imagine quite how gray and boring and non-vibrant a city looks without it. Turns out billboards and panels full of dramatic movies and TV shows, beautiful smiling faces selling makeup and phones... actually add a lot of character to a city and make it feel like things are happening and going on. Imagine if books no longer had graphic covers anymore, just all solid gray and beige and black covers, and you walked into a bookstore. It feels kind of like that. If you're going to get rid of advertising, at a minimum you've got to replace it with something -- like a lot of murals, like murals everywhere. (The Bushwick neighborhood of NYC has some areas full of street art, which works pretty well.)
- TulliusCicero 7y agoIt sounds like they removed both ads AND business signs attached to the actual businesses. I can understand doing the former, but for the latter, those signs are actually useful.
- lone_haxx0r 7y agoDiscerning between the two cases is arbitrary.
- ufo 7y agoThe law carves out an exception for business signage (which it calls "indicative signage")
- soneca 7y agoBut severely restricted its size, which I think was the better part of the change.
- jacquesm 7y agoWhen I lived in Poland before the wall came down it was just like that: gray. Then a Texaco gas station opened in the middle of Poznan, a tiny little slice of the West. A friend of mine remarked that she really hoped that the world would not change like that because it was so much color it was hard on the senses. Nuance is hard to observe in the face of being shouted at, both views have their fans and both have a point. Some cities would improve without advertising, others would show how bleak and gray they really are.
- argd678 7y agoHow do you find the store or restaurant you’re looking for?
- headsoup 7y agoLook at the business signage, rather than dig for it through all the advertising plastered around? Or use maps...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- whatever_dude 7y ago(2016)
- GhostVII 7y agoFrom the pictures, it seems like this ban lead to people removing signage from buildings entirely, which I think is pretty inconvenient. When I'm walking down the street, it is helpful to know what stores I am walking past, and have some information about them (ex. the phone number on Ribnits in the before picture). I think a better middle ground is to ban advertising that is not related to the structure the ad is on - that would get rid of a lot of the clutter created by billboards and third-party ads on things like bus stops, while still allowing stores to advertise themselves and what they do to people walking by.
- jopx 7y agoThere's a problem that maybe is related to this law, but the article haven't said anything about it. The increase of flyer distribution around the city. In the last years basically everywhere you go someone will stop you to give some flyers, paper that usually people will just throw in the streets and increase the pollution.
- mci 7y agoFun fact: the city of Krakow banned any signboards protruding perpendicular to the walls back in 1892 [1]. Although the ban has never been formally lifted, it got forgotten after 1918. Now the entire city including the old town is cluttered with them. [1] https://jbc.bj.uj.edu.pl/dlibra/publication/136678/edition/128890/content https://jbc.bj.uj.edu.pl/dlibra/publication/136678/edition/1... — page 20 (26).
- swang 7y agoi forgot sao paulo was the city with no advertising until after i visited.. but the most vivid memory i had in sao paulo was when we were in the subway and as we're exiting the subway my friend had his phone stolen while his hand was in his pocket touching his phone. my friend was upset and had to take time out of our vacation to call his banks and cancel his cards, etc.. but i was actually pretty impressed how they pulled it off (definitely a gang, and most likely everyone around us was in on it). the city seemed fine otherwise. actually the other memory i had while in sao paulo/brazil was lots of people wanting to take pictures with four asian dudes? anyone in brazil shed light on this? i know there is a big japanese community in brazil so i'm curious what their curiosity was with us.
- Farradfahren 7y agoIn this thread the goebbels of the earth, who in theire meetings deride the people as stupid animals to be manipulated by the cynic mentally superior at will, writting for theire lifelihood. If not sign of change, at least a nice inversion of power.
- Tade0 7y agoI grew up in Poland, which experienced explosive capitalism during the 90s and with it a surge of banners, billboards and ads. Most of them done on the cheap and in bad taste - optimised to draw attention. Fortunately at least in some cities regulations followed and most of that clutter was removed during the first years of the XXI century. Only bad second order effect I experienced are people employed to lure you into some places like strip clubs etc. My take is that banners should be allowed as long as there's a style guide issued by the city which they would have to follow. Italy is doing great in this regard - the worst I saw there were outdoor photo prints of menus which aren't nearly as bad as large posters in safety-vest yellow I saw back home.