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Comment by user3939382 | Hacker News Reader

I’d prefer if we banned outdoor public advertising altogether. Some town in Brazil did it, was it São Paulo?

Billboards are banned in Vermont, Maine, Hawaii and Alaska, all of which have absolutely beautiful landscapes.

Santa Cruz, CA, has only one billboard iirc, coming over hwy 17 from the Bay Area. I never appreciated how this muted the pace of advertising exposure until I spent time in other parts of the US where such things are less regulated.

"Welcome to Murder Capital, USA"?

what? santa cruz? murder capital?

Multiple serial killers killed a bunch of people there at the same time in the 70's, which gained them the murder capital label. And this was spray-painted on a billboard in Lost Boys which was filmed in Santa Cruz, though of course the cause there was vampires.

I think that I shall never see

A billboard lovely as a tree

Indeed, unless the billboards fall

I'll never see a tree at all.

    -- Ogden Nash, "Song of the Open Road"

I do think Times Square and broadway has a certain charm. I also loved the density of the neon signs in Mong Kok.

There’s is also something charming about the ridiculousness of using Burj Khalifa as a bill board.

On the whole, I wouldn’t choose allowing advertisement in public just to save those places but I would love to have my cake and eat it too.

No wonder billboards and neon signs are like an infestation in concrete jungles. Thats what it takes to make a place like that look more interesting. What a time to be alive.

I'd like to think there's an alternate timeline where instead of ads lighting up Times Square, it's art that lights it up.

Just a wee town of 12M eh?

c.f.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiosis_(figure_of_speech)

   `Other examples

   "The Pond", for the Atlantic Ocean ("across the pond") '

Mayhaps, but we can never know for sure now.

People call London "town". Just a phrase.

They also call some small places "city" too.

What is the definition? Is aircraft livery outdoor public advertising? How about highway signage showing which businesses are available on an exit?

How far from a store before a store sign crosses the threshold to become an ad?

I'm sure we can come to legal agreement as a society. We've legislated on far more esoteric and complex subjects.

> How about highway signage showing which businesses are available on an exit

You don't need that signage. Standard "food, lodging, gas station at next exit" signs exist.

In Sweden sides of the road (10 meters or so) belong to the road administration and advertising and billboards in that space are prohibited because they interfere with road signage.

It's amazing.

Man, I fucking wish.

I always wonder sometimes, did ancient civilizations have advertising? I think I read it was banned even.

> did ancient civilizations have advertising?

Yes:

https://blogs.transparent.com/latin/ancient-roman-gladiator-...

https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/spectaclesintheromanworldsour...

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/lwecg4/were_...

Banned in Bangalore, India.

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