Register | Login


In September 2006, the mayor of São Paulo passed the so-called “Clean City Law" that outlawed the use of all outdoor advertisements, including on billboards, transit, and in front of stores. Within a year, 15,000 billboards were taken down and store signs had to be shrunk so as not to violate the new law. Outdoor video screens and ads on buses were stripped. Even pamphleteering in public spaces has been made illegal. Nearly $8 million in fines were issued to cleanse São Paulo of the blight on its landscape. Seven years on, the world's fourth-largest metropolis and South America’s most important city remains free of visual clutter and eye sore that plagues the majority of cities around the world.

When the law was passed, it triggered wild alarm among city businesses and advertisement groups. Critics worried that the advertising ban would entail a revenue loss of $133 million and 20,000 people would lose jobs. Others predicted that the city would look like a bland concrete jungle with the ads removed.

sao-paulo-billboard-ban-2

Photo credit

Read more »
© Amusing Planet, 2013.


How a Failed Dam Legalized Marrying The Dead
How a Failed Dam Legalized Marrying The Dead
How A Single Cat Hunted to Extinction The Entire Species of Stephens Island Wren
How A Single Cat Hunted to Extinction The Entire Species of Stephens Island Wren
How Alexander Turned The Island of Tyre Into a Peninsula
How Alexander Turned The Island of Tyre Into a Peninsula
How Amsterdams Airport Is Fighting Noise Pollution With Land Art
How Amsterdams Airport Is Fighting Noise Pollution With Land Art
How Astronomer Percival Lowell Mistook His Own Eye For Spokes on Venus
How Astronomer Percival Lowell Mistook His Own Eye For Spokes on Venus
How Australia Remembers The Worlds Biggest Gold Nugget
How Australia Remembers The Worlds Biggest Gold Nugget
How Bermudas Chronic Water Shortage Shaped The Islands Iconic White Roof
How Bermudas Chronic Water Shortage Shaped The Islands Iconic White Roof
How Clowns Trademark Their Face By Painting On Eggs
How Clowns Trademark Their Face By Painting On Eggs