Sao Paulo: A City Without Advertising
Ever wanted what it would be like to live in a city without advertising? São Paulo is where you should head. São Paulo is city that has passed laws preventing outdoor advertising of any sort. This means no posters, flyers, bus ads, billboards or even stickers.
“In September last year, the city’s populist right-wing mayor, Gilberto Kassab, passed the so-called Clean City laws. Fed up with the “visual pollution” caused by the city’s 8,000 billboard sites, many of them erected illegally, Kassab proposed a law banning all outdoor advertising.
The skyscraper-sized hoardings that lined the city’s streets would be wiped away at a stroke. And it was not just billboards that attracted his wrath: all forms of outdoor advertising were to be prohibited, including ads on taxis, on buses—even shopfronts were to be restricted, their signs limited to 1.5 metres for every 10 metres of frontage. “It is hard in a city of 11 million people to find enough equipment and personnel to determine what is and isn’t legal,” reasoned Kassab, “so we have decided to go all the way.”
This bold move was first initiated in September 2006 and has been well documented by photographer Tony de Marco. Here’s a Business Week article about Sao Paulo’s ad-free campaign and I’ve dug up some pictures of Sao Paulo as well.
An urban environment stripped of advertising feels a little odd but it just take a little getting used to. I actually like the spartan feel of it.
soy de argentina, y hace un anio que vivo en san pablo, es verdad, ahora que lo advierto,…la vista descansa, de ciertos estimulos impuestos de toda la vida, (kind of like it, also!)
e verdade, acho que gosto mais assim…mesmo que as veizes a arquitetura, nao e legal, prefiero ese jeito de limpeza…
nice article, nice pics! thanks!
S.
Interesting concept, but they could take down the structures, which are more of an eyesore without anything on them.
If people could use the internet to find these businesses it would be great, but I would guess that not everyone there has access, making it difficult for people to connect with the businesses offering services to them.
Where I am from, all signs have to be approved by the city. Maybe that would be a more reasonable alternative. In the meantime – TAKE DOWN THOSE AWFUL STRUCTURES – they are by far worse than the ads that were on them.
R.I.P. – Ads once lived here but are now DEAD. Here is the corpse. Enjoy!
Isn’t it a bit obvious about the Mcdonalds sign?
It still has the shape of the golden arch which is a bit of a give-a-way.
I’m all for knocking the structures down.
If they got the billboards down, they could have dismantled the structures while they were up there.
it is a vast city of 20 million people (i lived there for 20 years) … all the outdoor advertising was awful … during elections it would become even worse … looked like a sea of garbage … what size department would you need to approve every single billboard spread over a city like that … then there are the bribes and the people who want to be clever so they put up what they want … beter to eliminate it all … on some major streets they also buried the wires and cables and did away with the telefone poles … what a huge difference it makes to live in a clean(er) environment!! congratulations paulistas for a brave and proper move.
ps: the structures will probably come down after some time as the people get used to not having the visual pollution and drop hope of using the structures again some day
They should put artwork up on the sites where the advertising used to exist. Imagine what a beautiful city it would be if there was just artwork EVERYWHERE, like advertising is in North America.
-Dan