Montrealers are familiar no doubt with Gerald Tremblay and Benoit Labonté’s campaign to clean up Montreal. Another mayor, in Sao Paulo, has also launched his own cleanliness campaign: he passed a “Clean City Law” so comprehensive that it deals not only with air, water and waste, but also with visual pollution. It also bans outdoor advertising. Since the law was passed, billboards all over the city have stood blank, or covered with white paper. Pictures in magazines show Sao Paolo transformed into a giant art project. A priori, the city seems almost lifelike, still and intemporal. The blank billboards recall campains for free speach. Closer observation reveals daily human patterns: curtains open or drawn, laundry drying, flowerpots. And amid this subtle activity, buildings and architecture line public spaces.
There has been surprisingly little coverage of this law – a story on npr, and the adbusters article. I can only speculate whether this is to stem claims that there may be too much advertising in our own cities, thereby openning the media’s revenue sources to criticism.
But it does seem far less wasteful: just think of how much greater things would be if we spent half of products’ advertising budgets on better product design.
