São Paulo, the most prosperous city in South America and one of the world's most famous cities, has one distinctive feature:No outdoor advertising
In September 2006, the city of São Paulo** enacted the famous "Clean Cities Law", which prohibits all forms of outdoor advertising, including signs, bus advertisements, advertisements and even flyers.
As soon as this decree was issued, it immediately caused an uproar.
Business people and advertisers are in mourning, fearing that the move will lead to a whopping 1$3.3 billion in lost income and 20,000 people out of work.
Some naysayers even predict that São Paulo will become a boring concrete forest without advertising.
I think the city will become sadder and more uninteresting," I think will be
Dalton Silvanom, an advertising practitioner and the only city councilman who voted against the ordinance at the time, said.
Not only is advertising an art form, but it's also a form of entertainment when you're driving or walking alone, which can help alleviate loneliness and boredom. ”
However, these concerns proved to be unfounded.
While it was true that São Paulo did look somewhat desolate in the first few months of the demolition of the billboards, filled with empty advertising frames and hastily painted storefronts, the city soon came back to life.
A 2011 survey showed that 70 percent of São Paulo residents agreed with the ban.
What's even more surprising is that the disappearance of the advertisement has allowed people to rediscover overlooked architectural details, revealing the beauty of the city that has been hidden for a long time.
My previous landmark was a giant Panasonic billboard,"
Vinicius Galvao, a journalist for Folha de S o Paulo, Brazil's largest newspaper, said this in an interview with the NPR.
But now, my landmark is an Art Deco building covered in billboards. The city has a new point of reference, a new language, a new identity. ”
Photographer Tony de Marco documented the dramatic changes in São Paulo in 2007 with his lens, and his ** series was wildly popular on Flickr.
São Paulo is not the only city in the world that bans outdoor advertising.
In the U.S., similar bans have been imposed in places like Vermont, Alaska, Hawaii and Maine, and about 1,500 cities and towns have joined the bandwagon.
In Europe, the Norwegian city of Bergen has taken the same steps, and many other cities have imposed strict limits on the number of billboards or have designated ad-free zones.
São Paulo's experience shows that the absence of outdoor advertising in a city not only does not lead to economic recession, but can improve the overall beauty of the urban environment and allow people to rediscover the hidden beauty of the city.
Perhaps, this is also a lesson for other cities to learn from.
Surrounded by colorful billboards every day, do you support the designation of an ad-free zone?Welcome to comment and leave a message.