A Swiss Town Banned Billboards. Zurich, Bern May Soon Follow

The city of Cracow in Poland banned billboards (and other visual advertising quite aggressively) about 2 years ago. Great outcomes. There are still some workarounds that companies do to put this s..t out in the public (e.g. covers of renovation works can contain up to 50% of advertising area, so we have renovations of just finished buildings only to put the covers with ads). Now, when I visit another city when there's no such ban I cannot stand this visual garbage. This should be banned everywhere.

Grenoble also banned all ads in 2014 and put in a lot of trees. It is truly an audacious move, yet completely rational. My dream is to also ban parking of cars in neighborhoods and most car traffic, cars can be parked along the edges in solar covered parking spaces. Add car sharing, better public transportation, urban agriculture, community gardens and parks: soon you'll have an efficient paradise of a city.

Unfortunately mayors of cities in the Netherlands do not have sufficient power to change rules like these, its the state which makes these rules. This is why we won't see such a thing in my country. There are progressive cities where it could fly, but overall the Netherlands has become extremely conservative.

The American state of Vermont has banned billboards since 1968. It makes spending time in the state extraordinarily pleasant.

I have always wondered how a world without marketing would look. I think marketing has a net negative effect. I also think that maybe you cannot eliminate all marketing but you can easily eliminate most of it just by controlling the spending of big companies, so it's possible. I have no ethical problems with eliminating it, as I consider it a form of manipulation and falsehood spreading, and anyway I don't consider companies have a right to free speech, or any real rights for that matter.

I live in the greater Johannesburg area of South Africa, the area I'm in is probably amongst the very highest economic contributors of the country, and while sitting still in traffic there is no where one can look without some advert being in view, it's dystopian and depressing.

Even worse though, there is this amazingly fancy huge electronic billboard and then all around it (like most streets here) everything is, if not messy from litter, just generally scruffy, unkept plants / grass, weeds growing on the verge of the road, streets not swept, etc.

Technically, the depressing mess is the fault of the local government which is generally incompetent, but considering that they already charge these billboard companies for the rights to show these adverts there, they could just make another part of the deal for the rights is that the billboard companies are obligated to ensure that part of the road is kept neat.

It wouldn't be the primary reason for the brain drain here, but definitely just one more reason that people give up on the country.

(The reasons why skilled middle-class people are fleeing include: Crime, corruption, constant load shedding (it's been better as of late, but it remains to be seen if it's gone for good), we pay a significant amount of income tax, and then also 15% VAT on practically everything (on top of the import fees for most things). Despite the amount of taxes the middle class pays, government education, healthcare and policing are not to be relied on, so we also need to pay for private versions of those too. The bottom line is we get terrible value for money for the taxes we pay.

I consider my taxes to be largely charity to the majority of the population which is in poverty and don't pay taxes, so I do feel absolutely aggrieved with the apathy, incompetence or corruption of our government which results in very little of that money being used where it should be.)

Companies are still waiting for augmented reality to become a thing so that they can correct this problem and place ads on every available surface within your field of view no matter where you are.

Something I like to do, to keep my personal space a tiny bit more ad-free: when on a flight, bus-ride or similar, where you have ads placed right in front of your eyes (mounted on the back of the seat in front of you), it's usually possible to slide the cardboard with the printed ad out, sideways, simply flip it and put it back. Enjoy a nice, calming, white rectangle for the rest of your trip.

Reading comments it's amusing to see people, seems like, brainwashed into not being able to function without ads...

Well, for once - maybe making more informed decission when buying stuff (starting with "do I even need that" instead of emotional impulse buying becasue hot chick/guy told them to)

"We didn’t recognize any public interest in having billboards"

Seems about right - hopefully the same rationale can be employed in more and more cities.

São Paulo did this in 2006, and it worked out very well.

People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.

You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.

Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.

– Banksy

For those living in placed with advertisements: I've made a website based on/contributing to OpenStreetMap where one can add advertising items, such as billboards: https://mapcomplete.org/advertising

A few anti-pub groups are using it to map the issue and to lobby against it with data in hand.

A metro station in Prague (JZP) got recently renovated and shortly after the opening, ads were absent. It was a breath of fresh air, finally being in a space without visual pollution. In the following weeks, the metro station was plastered with ads again and people complained.

I can’t remember the details of the story, but it was found out that whoever owned that space (council, city or public transport company?) charged a really small amount for the ad space, to the point where removing it was a very negligible loss in revenue. So they removed all the ads again.

It’s undeniable the most beautiful metro station in Prague. Freshly renovated, cool design and no ads.

>Markus Ehrle, the industry association’s president, said that money would instead “flow to big internet companies like Google or Meta,”

When I saw the headline, I thought 'oh, what a nice idea', but the quote above might have a point and I am not entirely sure how right it is. But I guess there is probably some truth to it.

I hate digital, and especially animated, billboards very very much. It's super annoying and just plain distracting. Maybe just analog billboards might be a good way. So local businesses get a way to advertise themselves. Maybe it has to get some regulation so that big companies won't buy all the ad space? I am not sure.

ITT: if you're rich enough you don't have to see the billboards saturating the landscape of the customers feeding the investments you own.

I don’t know if this includes subways but that would be welcome. Subway corridors full of billboards are an absolute brain drain.

On the way from office to home, there's a junction with a HUGE LCD display. At night, the screen is so bright it's very annoying.

It's like being in a dark room and putting your laptop display to max. In front of everyone stopping at the red light. Not sure who's the genius behind it, but I think the ad has opposite effect of people hating the product advertised there.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Advertisement is a pollution, a parasite, a cancer on modern society that we've all put up with for too long.

It makes our physical and online spaces uglier. They waste space. They waste electricity. They waste computational resources. They waste brain space for the people viewing them. The most aggressive advertisers often sell low-quality services/products or outright scams, which harms those least educated and poorest individuals.

They encourage people to spend outside of their means. They make people feel they need a product or else they're lesser or ugly or poor or a bad friend or a bad spouse or a bad parent or whatever it is they're preying on.

And don't even get me started on advertising for medication. The fact that's not illegal is insane.

The city I live in in So Cal banned billboards and has had limits on business signs for a very long time ago. I have always appreciated the reduced visual noise. It is really obvious when you cross over into the next city over because it is nothing but billboards all over the highway for dispensaries, casinos, ambulance chasing or divorce attorneys, and car insurance. They've been so strict about it that it took about 15 years longer to get an In-n-Out.

I support the idea that citizens have a right to limit their exposure to advertising. I think it is a good decision to prioritize public interests over commercial ones

I'm all for this, I'm in a city not so far away, and there's so many nice areas with tree lined roads, parks, beautiful buildings and then suddenly a giant ugly billboard.

I have noticed they are frequently vandalised, adverts are regularly torn off, and particularly large and ugly one has been removed down the road

How much I hate these standalone ad displays and billboard size ad displays.

Billboards tend to be used by larger companies. I wonder what they do with the newly freed up ad budget. I'm guessing it goes to online ads rather than a reduced ad spend.

Without billboards,How will they know that Jesus loves them?

People think of advertisements/sponsorships as "free money" to support things that otherwise couldn't be budgeted for (arts, sports, infrastructure), but if you think a bit deeper companies wouldn't pay for ads if they didn't expect a return on it.

If an ad during a sports game pays the teams/league 10 million dollars, that means they expect the audience to spend in aggregate 10 million more dollars on the product. Sure, the company might be making a bad bet, and sometimes they do, but surely it would be better for everyone involved (except the advertisers and advertising company) if the league/teams just charged customers 10 million dollars more (not necessarily 10 million/ticket number per ticket, it could be merch, or perks, or upcharging for the nicer seats, but they do that anyway).

If you think about it, ads are basically a tool to fix broken monetization. But as long as they exist, we'll never address why monetization is so broken, and I suspect people would be more willing to spend disposable income on the things they actually enjoy, instead of the things they see ads for.

When traveling to other countries, and sometimes even just to other major cities, I always enjoyed seeing the different billboards. Often they would be for local businesses that I wouldn't otherwise know about, and they also convey some of the local culture. I enjoy seeing the creative typography to style a foreign language, the appeals to this or that "ideal", the quirky attempts at humor. It always seemed to me to be part of the antidote to the "this city looks like all the other cities" trend of cultural homogenization that seems to be eating the world. Sure, there are also the ubiquitous global or luxury brand ones, but you take the good with the bad like everything else, and even these will often have a different twist based on the country you're in.

Would love to see this in SF. It's especially bad on 101.

This is Swiss direct democracy in action. Bravo.

(They have a very interesting system, for anyone interested in learning about how politics may be done differently. And it's supported by [or generates?] a culture of significant political engagement within the populace.)

Is this uncommon: Germantown, Tennessee banned (or severely limited?) billboards and loud signage long ago. We had a hard time finding any stores in this town for years.

https://library.municode.com/tn/germantown/codes/code_of_ord...

And based on this article billboard were banned in Alaska in 1949!

https://movia.media/moving-billboard-blog/why-are-billboards...

Ads are necessary evil. Though fight will(and should) continue on all mediums.

Was building a case for German offline event posters.

1: https://pasteboard.co/2IJsohNRRpQd.jpg

2: https://pasteboard.co/nFpogptFxuty.jpg

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Fyi, drive through many parts of Canada and billboards often mark political boundries. They are generally banned, except on tribal land where the native community largely governs its own land use.

https://www.bcbusiness.ca/industries/general/board-politics/

I don't like billboards much, so I'm fine with dropping them. Although this ban still allows sport advertisement, looks like sport brands will just start advertising every single match and gain exposition on the cheap.

And of course we all can prefer "cultural" advertisement to soft drinks, but If the intent is to reduce visual pollution, why does the content of the advertisement matter?

Personal story around billboards: When I visited time square in NYC for the first time, I for some reason had this expectation that was created by Hollywood and was so disappointed to see that it’s nothing but a big electronic billboard showcase.

My home state Maine hasn't allowed billboards since the last one came down in 1984. Alsaka and Hawaii have similar laws.

https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/maine/12-terrifying-places-m...

Tangential: I live in a rather rich suburb in the US, there are barely ANY billboards, drive ~10-15 miles away from the city everything is littered with billboards. Most of them advertise what I can only summarize as "probably spam". Tt is an interesting corralation and I would hope the state would just ban them.

Vermont is way ahead on this one. It’s one of the things that makes Vermont feel so different from the rest of the US.

Advertising is business owners paying to take a dump in your brain. Google, Meta et all are no better than billboards.

Adfree Cities is worth checking out - https://adfreecities.org.uk

HN post from 7 months ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38629763

I’d like that.

In some cities (at least in France and Germany), the advertising companies have a deal: they build and maintain bus stops, public toilets and rubbish bins — in return, they get an exclusive right for advertising in these spaces.

In these cases, there will be a cost associated to turning off billboards.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles has raised them to massive and blinding levels. Visual goose-stepping.

There are no billboards in most of Seattle and it is great. There are also very few buildings with signage on them. It gives the place a very different, calming, and aesthetically pleasing vibe compared to cities like SF or LA.

Maine and Vermont did this years ago. Its very nice. Meanwhile, driving through other urban areas in the US, the # of billboards make it seem like a hellscape. At least personal injury and bail bonds industry is doing well!

Got keys to my new apartment yesterday and noticed there are 3 billboards within a block from my place that will be slightly ruining the sunrise

The article mentions the economic gain from the billboards but what about the negative externality that the advertisers don’t have to pay?

there are no billboards in vermont and it's great. there's a baseball field by my house with a bunch of billboards behind the fence and it feels like getting saturated with american advertisements whenever i walk by it, like a weird reverse zen anxious feeling, seeing all of those ads after not seeing any for a long time

I'm feeling the irony of not being able to read this article due to the banner advertising in the Bloomberg site.

> ads online are much more energy-intensive than billboards.

Is this quote from the article remotely true or even verifiable?

This is great. I wish something similar could happen where I live but civic consciousness is very low around here

I can vividly recall visiting Prague in the Communist era and was amazed to see no billboards, it was like stepping back in time.

What amplified the effect for me was that the Communists had done very little development since they'd come to power which meant that not only the old centre of the city but also some of its suburburban parts had remained essentially unaltered since the 18th Century.

No doubt, those who lived there would have noticed changes but to my jaded eyes the city was a time capsule.

It seems I wasn't alone thinking that, the producers of the 1984 movie version of Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus used Prague as a backdrop because it was historically 'pristine' in that it had not been spoiled by ads.

When I returned some years later after the fall of Communism things were very different, there were ads and billboards everywhere. I was both shocked and saddened at what had happened, the billboards had visually polluted the city.

I'd love to see billboards removed but I can't see it happening in the major centers of capitalism anytime soon.

São Paulo city banned them around 2008. The entire Brazil followed within a decade.

Ok, but how are they planning for people to find personal injury attorneys now?

I love this. Although, now how will I know that HELL IS REAL or JESUS SAVES?

it is very likely that this ban might be prevented by lobbying, as one of the main providers (even visible on the picture in the article) is, let's say "well connected" to our legislative

If they want to limit “visual pollution” they should crack down on graffiti. Zurich is covered in it and it’s really ugly. Local Swiss claimed it’s no worse than other cities, but it was worse than any place I’ve seen.

This is the #1 feature of my Meta Ray-Ban glasses.

The American mind cannot understand this.

1. buy real estate in a billboard-infested city

2. ban billboards

3. sell

Yes please, more of that!

Sao Paulo too.

* Manila has entered the chat https://x.com/moonlight2129/status/1624712320059600897/photo...

Can we please ban advertising from society and into convenient little directory books where everything is categorized? If I want something, only *then* I [still most likely won't] want to see ads.

Why am I acting so entitled about it?

I just am, and frankly you should be too! :^)

Vermont resident here. We don’t have billboards. They are illegal.

Ah yes the worm is being spread.

But won't somebody think of the shareholders????

I watched a baseball game for the first time in a while and there was a logo on the pitcher’s mound. I’m beyond sick of incessant ads.

but is it worth? These companies now go to online and push more in ai thereby increasing the carbon footprint.

The EU's love of banning things is lazy policy-making. It's better to disincentivize and let markets take care of it. That way you preserve freedom while also encouraging desirable outcomes. Further reading: "Nudge" by Richard Thaler.