[jasonkester]

I live near Paris, and it's a shame to see this sort of thing on every surface here. It's so easy and effortless to trash the look of a place, and so much effort and pain to get it back to a presentable state. It just seems hopeless trying to stop it.

Sure, you can point to examples of graffiti that don't look all that bad, and I imagine some examples can even be considered to improve the look of a space. But taking this site as a random sample, the "good" ones are a vanishing minority. For every subtle Invader mosaic high on a building, you get dozens of effortless name tags that just wreck the look of a place.

Adding frustration is the fact that there's no way to effectively dissuade people from doing this. You don't want to fine, jail or otherwise ruin the lives of thousands of kids to get them to stop. You just want them to stop spraypainting shit. It's really the only example I can think of where I'd support some form of corporal punishment. Catch kids in the act, 20 lashes in the town square to convince them not to do it again, then set them to work with a wire brush until they can demonstrate that it's back to the state they found it. Even still, I can't imagine it would really do much to dissuade.

It's a shame.

[dcposch]

> You don't want to fine, jail or otherwise ruin the lives of thousands of kids to get them to stop. > You just want them to stop spraypainting shit.

https://i.imgur.com/qaFgSm7.png

You have it backwards. It's the act of NOT fining them, NOT calling their parents, of ignoring small destructive acts that ruins lives.

Almost everyone doing a 10 year sentence for a serious crime started out by getting away with a lot of small ones.

[guywithahat]

I agree with everything you said but I don't understand the imgur reference

[lelandfe]

That you "want to have your cake and eat it too," is what they're saying.

Yon dog does too.

[komali2]

No accounting for taste, but, graffiti is important whether it's aesthetically pleasing or not.

https://ancientgraffiti.org/Graffiti/

Graffiti is a population's expression of ownership of their city. It's a very common form of countercultural resistance and therefore an important relief valve. It's a way for anyone to express themselves on their environment. A city only has value because it's occupied by many people, and those people need to express their autonomy and quite literally "leave their mark."

Not to mention, it's lovely to be connected to a common thread of humanity over literal millenia. Just as I scrawled onto a bathroom stall in 2005 "Cameron takes it up the bum," so too did Salvius write of his friend on a wall in the House of the Citharist in the year 79, "Amplicatus, I know that Icarus is buggering you. Salvius wrote this."

[ZpJuUuNaQ5]

>It's a very common form of countercultural resistance and therefore an important relief valve. It's a way for anyone to express themselves on their environment.

So, what are these random scribblers resisting, exactly? It's like saying that defecating on the street is a form of self-expression and "leaving their mark". Even if it is, do we really need to tolerate it?

>Not to mention, it's lovely to be connected to a common thread of humanity over literal millenia.

There is nothing lovely about seeing all this garbage littering the walls of public buildings and historical finds do not justify this behaviour.

[komali2]

> So, what are these random scribblers resisting, exactly?

The idea that the city is owned by the uppermost caste of that society.

> There is nothing lovely about seeing all this garbage littering the walls of public buildings and historical finds do not justify this behaviour.

Massive cathedrals to the rich would be erected and made holy, and individuals upon whose back society is build would demonstrate that though entrance is barred to them, they still can make the thing their own.

Nowadays there's plenty of such things in a city that closes its doors to many people that live in said city. San Francisco is a great example of this, where rising costs are pushing anyone not working in tech. Graffiti is an easy way to spit in the face of the rich that are trying to take a city away from you. Clearly, it has an outsized impact on their sensibilities.

[nmeofthestate]

I suspect most graffiti doesn't actually have this twisted motivation. It's just selfishness by thoughtless people wanting to advertise themselves, like dogs marking their territory. This intellectual rationalisation is more of a projection by resentful people with a poisonous worldview.

[fwip]

I think you may have agreed with them a long time ago, when you chose your username. Have you perhaps become wealthier, in the interim?

[browsingonly]

Maybe just more mature.

[dole]

Commentary is graffiti. We're all selfish dogs marking our territory, advertising that we exist.

[komali2]

Do you believe you're giving graffiti artists even a thimbleful of good faith by comparing them to dogs?

[sokoloff]

Is your concern that a thimbleful of good faith for vandals is too much or too little?

[ZpJuUuNaQ5]

To me personally, it sounds really bizarre. I cannot understand this way of thinking, but I guess it's just a matter of cultural differences.

[zdragnar]

This is just whitewashing crime.

The people being hurt by this aren't the millionaire or billionaire tech caste.

I'm reminded of when rioters were trashing stores in response to George Floyd's death. The usual justification was "oh business insurance will cover it, they need an outlet for their emotions" Well, the only grocery store in a predominantly black neighborhood was out of commission for weeks due to damage. A black owned liquor store was burned down, and he didn't have insurance. Lots of similar stories on Lake Street. The people who deserved that harm the very least got it the most.

[komali2]

I really don't understand the connection between street art and the George Floyd protests. I understand that you generally don't like the idea of people operating outside of the State-mandated heteronormative way, in which case I say, the best way to prevent a riot is not have cops murder people.

We whitewash crime every day here, for example theft of labor value. It's not a crime in the USA but it is a crime insomuch as it's unethical.

[WalterBright]

I'm curious how you determine the value of your labor.

[culopatin]

You really think that the majority of taggers are thinking this deep? It’s mostly teenagers in high school that are mimicking others thinking “I’m so cool”. It fights nothing regardless. We can assign it value out of our asses all day and take some documentary as the truth, but if you think a kid writing a random scribble on the bart window or a bar bathroom, or a small business’s door deserves to take any of that back from the “caste” what are we talking about? The city is everyone’s, the tagger claiming a wall is as selective as what you claim the city is doing. Why do they think some random surface is more theirs than everyone else’s? I find tagging more selfish than what the city is doing.

[komali2]

> You really think that the majority of taggers are thinking this deep?

Nope, not something I thought up at all, this is what I discovered after talking to a lot of taggers and street artists as a result of my photography obsession leading me into the skater scene. I used to think tagging was just gangs marking territory (in reality only a small portion of it is).

What I have noticed is that a certain class of people have formed an immutable idea of taggers, skaters, and street artists, and that idea includes that for whatever reason all these sorts of folks are stupid. I've found that to be not the case at all.

[culopatin]

I was a skater myself and many of the people I used to hang with would be into tagging. None of us were rich, if anything the taggers around me had more privileges than the not taggers. I couldn’t afford the expensive markers or spray cans for example. I don’t know what you mean by certain class of people.

[stickfigure]

That explains why I see graffiti in all the rich neighborhoods and none in the poor neighborhoods </s>.

[komali2]

You don't see graffiti in rich neighborhoods either because you're describing the suburbs where nobody really lives (as a measurement of people per square kilometer) or because rich neighborhoods get immediate attention by cleaners (or the rich hire private cleaners).

There's plenty of graffiti in Manhattan, have you looked up how much it costs to rent there lately?

[throwaway2037]

This is an interesting point, but I push back a bit. First, "Manhattan" is much larger than most people realise. There is almost no graffiti in the rich neighborhoods (Upper West/East, etc.), but there is plenty of graffitti in the more iffy neighborhoods (East Villiage, ABCs, SOHO, etc.). It pretty much scales with wealth -- richer has less graffiti. Second, specific to this post about San Francisco, there is almost no graffiti in the suburban areas out west (Sunset, Richmond) and wealthy neighborhoods like Russian Hill or The Marina, but loads of graffiti in The Mission, Potrero Hill, and SoMa.

[direwolf20]

Resisting the ideology that only people with money can alter the city environment.

When you see an impressive sculpture or skyscraper you know a lot of resources were spent, you know the rich people here are rich. When you see an area with lots of graffiti, there may be many good or bad things about it, but you know the citizens are free.

I would hope graffitiers have respect to only draw on the mundane parts of the city, not on cool sculptures. And in my experience, that is true. Also they should not obscure windows or information signs.

[ZpJuUuNaQ5]

I think the cultural barrier preventing me from understanding this way of thinking is impenetrable to me. What a strange world, huh?

[komali2]

I think that's very exciting for you, because imo it's very rarely we encounter truly challenging problems like this.

I understand that you prefer to make up your mind about street artists, but I can assure you as someone that used to hold the same opinion, that opinion is held from a place of unfamiliarity with the culture and the people in it. It was very enlightening for me to step out of my SF tech circle into the street art scene and talk to very, very different people. You may be different but I personally find it very important to challenge my thinking by talking to very different kinds of people.

[ZpJuUuNaQ5]

>I think that's very exciting for you

Random online interactions rarely change anyone's opinions, and you don't have to accept my worldview, and neither I need to accept yours. I am just somewhat saddened that there are people who would defend defacing the city like that, but at the same time, I understand that we are byproducts of our environment. I think I should consider myself lucky that I happen to live in a place which I appreciate. It's not that I am incapable of admiring art or loathe graffiti as a style, but, at least based on my experience, most of it are just cases of vandalism. My city actually have places dedicated to graffiti artists, so that they can create whatever they want freely, but I guess that removes at least some of the fun.

[direwolf20]

Are you American? Freedom means the ability to do what you want. It doesn't mean owning guns.

[nmeofthestate]

I'm not American, but I doubt being pro-graffiti is a universal American value. I suspect many Americans aren't that into it, given it makes the place look bad. Many Americans might think instead that you should only deface things you own.

[ZpJuUuNaQ5]

>Are you American? Freedom means the ability to do what you want. It doesn't mean owning guns.

No, I am not, and I haven't mentioned guns or even hinted at the topic. Do whatever you want, but trying to purposefully destroy and smear the environment around you and claim it's an expression of freedom is ridiculous. It's just malicious, disgusting behavior that helps no one, serves no cause and has nothing to do with freedom.

[socalgal2]

I'm surprised you don't understand it. Put your money where your mouth is. Let me come over and tag all your property.

[nemothekid]

>Even if it is, do we really need to tolerate it?

People not only tolerate, but I'd argue most people prefer it. I think, unlike Singapore or Tokyo, Americans, in cities, largely prefer a little lived in grime.

The Mission Bay is a relatively new neighborhood in San Francisco - mostly free of graffiti and is pretty much sterile, and most people would prefer to live in the Mission rather than Mission Bay. OpenAI likely pays a huge premium to HQ in the mission rather than settling in the more corporate offices of Mission Bay or even the Financial District.

I also noticed the same in Berlin - Kreuzberg, Neukolln, and other neighborhoods in East Berlin attract the most people, despite being drenched in graffiti.

If ever move to a city in America and tell people you live in the generally clean, spick and span, neighborhood in that city, half the people will look at you like you have 3 heads or simply assume you have no personality. Graffiti has largely become an accepted, or even valued, feature of a neighborhood. I believe internally it separates the "cool" city inhabitants from the "losers" out in the suburbs.

Edit: I just looked through all the images in the OP and one of them is a banksy. It's been there for over a decade. Graffiti isn't just tolerated, its practically protected.

[-_-]

What do you mean? OpenAI's main offices have been in Mission Bay since 2024

[ryandrake]

> Graffiti is a population's expression of ownership of their city.

I think this is the heart of it, and where cities and suburban towns differ.

It's admittedly very hard to articulate in words. The walls of buildings in a city are part of the greater, broader, "face of the city." They are in a sense both part of a general "public space" yet also still privately owned. The walls of single family homes in suburban neighborhoods don't really compare. There's much more of a shared sense of "ours" in a city than there is out in the country, where everything's fenced off in little discrete boxes of land, each with someone's name on it. This greater sense of shared agency over the aesthetic of the broader "city" makes street art more justifiable there than it is in single family home places.

[jakobnissen]

Oh I disagree completely. Precisely because city spaces are more shared, vandalism, including graffiti, is Mitch more destructive in cities.

It really undermines the sense of community when vandals deface public spaces and community centers and apartment blocks.

[jasonfarnon]

"It really undermines the sense of community when vandals deface public spaces and community centers and apartment blocks."

I much prefer graffiti in my field of vision than corporate billboards. In SF I don't even notice the graffiti, maybe because most of it is hard to read and understand? But I do notice the huge huge billboards over every thoroughfare with the stupid corny messages.

[komali2]

> It really undermines the sense of community

The people in these communities feel the opposite of you, especially since a lot of street art is murals capturing some local culture e.g. see Clarion Alley in San Francisco, a lot of very explicit messages of community.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/AAWmH3aq51MWN1M88

[zdragnar]

Graffiti is by definition uninvited and unwanted (esp. in SF city ordinance)

[komali2]

Then why is Clarion Alley covered in graffiti that hundreds of people a day come to look at? Why is said graffiti often applied by residents?

City ordinance is not an accurate reflection of the desires of all subsections of a city. It's a reflection of the desires of the ruling caste, whose needs sometimes, but frequently don't, align with those of "lower" castes.

A bench is a great place for a nap, unless the mayor happens to see you sleeping on one, gets scared, and calls the cops about it.

[GuinansEyebrows]

consider that it's a symptom of a community fragmented by the result of the profit motive rather than a cause of the fragmentation

[throwaway2037]

    > therefore an important relief valve

Until it is done to your small business or home, then it is no longer an "important relief valve". The solution to reducing graffiti is multi-part. Here are a few ideas: (1) Pass a state law to restrict the sale of spray paint -- you need a special license to buy it. (2) Pass a local law to reward citizens who provide evidence of taggers (video, photos, etc.). If the city can convict, you are rewarded. Make the reward large enough (1000+ USD?) to be strongly encouraging. (3) Create public spaces where people are allowed to spay paint. This is a little bit like skate parks.

[komali2]

It's already usually illegal to do graffiti, sometimes that's the whole point.

[Hackbraten]

(4) Afford young people more options and opportunities to do meaningful things.

[big_toast]

I think I used to believe something like this. But I spent two decades living in this context and changed my mind.

There can be beautiful and effective expressions of culture and resistance that don’t tear down the commons people are trying to build together. And it’s hard to ask people to take care of the commons when other people aren’t. Instead we cede management of shared space to private enterprise (malls and gyms and retail as entertainment because your parks are torn up).

[specialist]

Agree with all.

> Graffiti is a population's expression of ownership of their city.

My understanding has been (some fraction of) taggers are disaffected. So I could buy that some are reasserting ownership.

Some are just dumb teenagers acting out (shitposting), like my son did.

A handful are pretty good artists. Like some of the kids in my kid's extended social group. Worthy of resources and media. eg Commissions for murals.

[BryantD]

If you're a cinema person, I strongly recommend Agnes Varda's documentary on LA street art at the end of the 1970s, Mur Murs. (That's a pun: murals as an expression of the murmurs of the community.) It takes graffiti as an expression of ownership as the central thesis and I found it really lovely. Thanks for this comment.

[akomtu]

I suspect it's not the population's expression of ownership, but simply gangs marking their territory.

[komali2]

Sometimes tagging is that, sure, or just some person indicating that they exist there. For some taggers, it's an addiction. I knew one that would tag at people's houses when invited to parties. I was outside smoking a cigarette with him after the owner had threw him out on his ass, asking why he did shit like that, and he said "I just feel like if I can tag someone's house, it's like I've won."

I can kinda empathize since I'll have an addiction to getting the perfect photograph during a protest or whatever and will go to extreme lengths and burn through SD cards to get it.

In my experience the majority of graffiti is artists just putting up art. Privileged folk pass down the propaganda that graffiti is dirty and gangster and so any street art is viewed as dirty, but in the end it's just a matter of taste.

[baud147258]

> the majority of graffiti is artists just putting up art.

Art? Where I live the overwhelming majority of graffiti is just a few letters forming meaningless words... Like even if it was art, no one could appreciate it because no one could understand it.

[komali2]

Eh, that kinda sucks. If you learn to read it, it can be a bit cool to see who's where. But I would say the majority of graffiti in my city is at minimum a little doodle, and often full blown murals. If that's not the case where you live that is indeed a bit ofa bummer.

[akomtu]

Art? There are some exceptions, indeed, where graffiti can be called art, but most of it is tasteless disgusting mess. It's borderline demonic in some cases. This especially applies to the list of pictures in the post. My theory is why ugliness is often considered beautiful is because ugliness invokes stronger and darker emotions.

[fwip]

    > "Borderline demonic"
    > look inside
    > it's Calvin and hobbes

[komali2]

> It's borderline demonic

Demons aren't real so I don't understand what this means.

> tasteless disgusting mess

Do you disagree that taste is subjective, then? It seems what's happening here is that you're very, very confident that you are an authority on what's beautiful, despite several people telling you they find beauty in what you abhor.

[akomtu]

The type of art you like or dislike is a reflection of your mental state. In this sense, taste is subjective. However some of those mental states are good and some are evil, which is objective. If I suddenly find myself liking aggressive chaotic art, I'll be worried that something's changed in me in a bad way.

But you're right that I'm very confident in my measure of what's beautiful and what's not, and a few people aren't going to sway me. Even if every last human on the earth fell for this demonic art, I wouldn't budge.

[at-fates-hands]

The most well known writers (this is their term, few if any graffiti writers I know refer to themselves as artists) are actually the ones who paint trains, not in metro areas. Yes, writers do paint all over metro areas, but that gets buffed out so quickly that the real holy grail is to get up on trains that go all over the country.

Train graffiti allows your art to roam and writers from other cities see it and recognize it. Your creativity proceeds you when you go to other cities to write and expand where you're known.

I live in a large metro and see very little if any gang graffiti. Also, most of the really good stuff? You never know its there because its under bridges, in aqua ducts and other areas few, if any people know about or venture to.

[u8080]

"art"

[direwolf20]

Why do you suspect that?

[baud147258]

> It's a way for anyone to express themselves on their environment

no, just a way for a minority to trash public infrastructure because they're assholes

[nurettin]

They should work as plate cleaners and civil park workers 100 hours a month. That will teach those entitled teens to leave their mark while autonomously cleaning those plates and planting flowers.

[woodpanel]

> Graffiti is a population's expression of ownership of their city.

Is of course what art-students, pol-sci and social-sciences majors construct out of it because it fits their narratives. Never mind that the scratching of some roman soldier in a brothel's restroom has nothing to do at all with the NYC-born graffti culture. This top-to-bottom social astro-turfing would be just laughable grandstanding if it didn't result in real consequences for less affluent kids: crime, drugs, and deadly injuries as well as filing for bankrupcy at an age where Mrs. cultural-capital has acquired her prestigous arts degree.

[guywithahat]

I was thinking that too, it feels remarkably out of touch. People own the builds, homes, and businesses. If you're graffiting someone's business you're a tourist in the city, not an owner. Even from a philosophical perspective this makes no sense, because it claims the tourists hold ownership over someone else's city because they bought a can of spray paint while living in their parents basement

[komali2]

> This top-to-bottom social astro-turfing would be just laughable grandstanding if it didn't result in real consequences for less affluent kids: crime, drugs, and deadly injuries as well as filing for bankrupcy

We were discussing graffiti.

You seem to know a lot better than less affluent people what's good for them. When you talk to such people, what do they tell you about crime, drugs, deadly injury, and filing for bankruptcy? When you've talked to graffiti artists, what led you to believe they were doing it so as to cause crime, drugs, deadly injury, and bankruptcy?

[socalgal2]

Tons of people unfortunately see this as ok. My response to them is always "let me tag your car, your house, your laptop" and if you complain you're a hypocrite

I like "Street Art" where permission has been given. I don't like tagging and property destruction. Maybe when I get a little older I'll find some graffiti exhibit at a museum and go tag it.

[tristor]

I really enjoy graffiti murals, and I go out of my way to photograph them in my own city and when I travel. I will see them when I driving or walking around and stop to look for a moment and try to understand the perspective and message of the artist and take a picture if I can.

That said, I don't much like tagging, tagging is generally not art in my opinion even if you can say artist styles are used within it. Tagging is all about ego and selfishness, it's there purely for the sake of saying "I was here", as if you are the most important person in the city that you should claim to put your name on that wall.

I've met quite a few graffiti artists all over the world in my travels, and the people who tag and the people who paint murals are by and large /not/ the same people. The folks who paint murals are trying to say something, the folks who tag have nothing more to say than to try to create a monument of some kind to themselves. I don't respect taggers, I do respect muralists.

[zahlman]

I consider corporal punishment inherently barbaric. An appropriate fine or short stay in jail ought not be life-ruining.

Also, I think there are other effective approaches in some circumstances. People (including "the kids"), locally (Toronto) and other places I've heard of, have been paid (not a super common thing, but it happens) to do actual artwork. There's a mural I consider quite well done, not too far from my place, that isn't getting defaced even though it's in a place where I would otherwise ordinarily expect strong temptation to "tagging" and other graffiti.

[jjmarr]

I've heard real estate people call this legalized extortion, since you have to select a graffiti artist with enough reputation that others don't mess with the piece.

[snypher]

>real estate people call this legalized extortion

I hope they know what some say of the real estate agent.

[alwa]

I’ve heard such reputations involve not only the caliber of the art, but also the retributive consequences the artist and friends are thought to impose on people who deface their work…

[s_dev]

I think there is a lot of nuance here. Just as councils and developers can construct ugly buildings artists can also add ugly work to walls.

I agree there is a spectrum. On one hand you've Banksy or Basquiat adding to a flat grey wall and creating art that has a political voice or some artistic merit and the other you've some twat scribbling hate symbols on a historic monument. I don't have on ideas on how we can ensure one and not the other though.

[dkarl]

It sounds like you're saying the only thing ugly about tagging is when it contains objectionable political content. That's not really responding to the complaint here, which is that the vast majority of it is low effort, low quality tagging that makes things aesthetically uglier. It's easy to go out with a collector's eye, cherry-pick the good stuff, and put together a slideshow that makes it look like a public amenity, but that ignores the overall effect of wall after building after block of proof of Sturgeon's Law.

Is it ignorable? Does all the terrible stuff just disappear into the background, or should we care about how it affects the experiences of people who have to live with it and walk past it every day? I think that's the question people are arguing.

[woodpanel]

> You don't want to fine, jail or otherwise ruin the lives of thousands of kids to get them to stop.

Oh yes, you want to (with an asterisk). As a former Graffiti writer myself I can speak from experience that the judge will be the first person in those kids life taking their actions seriously, giving them any sort of guidance.

Better spend a couple of hours per month doing social work than letting them slip further away until no softer juvenile criminal code is there to protect them.

[mahrain]

One of the most startling differences between Chinese and European cities is the lack of grafitti in China. I wonder if it's explained by laws, norms, enforcement?

[threethirtytwo]

Also culture. There’s just no culture of it.

[brador]

It’s explained by punishment.

[jerlam]

Also probably a lot of surveillance. Not just cameras, but by people in the community.

[droopyEyelids]

People underestimate the tattle-tale culture in China.

[direwolf20]

If you execute everyone who commits a misdemeanor, crime rates are extremely low.

[dragonwriter]

If you simply eliminate all criminal laws, the crime rate goes down as much as is possible, immediately.

[idle_zealot]

Yeah, a city with a population of zero has zero crime.

[mmooss]

To include the obvious in this discussion, it's your opinion that street art / graffiti makes things ugly; others feel differently. I think it brings places alive, brings human expression into the otherwise highly controlled environment. There's a spirit to it, and I love to see kids who have no voice take the step of speaking up. I love to see it, generally. To me it's a sign of freedom and very democratic.

As for it's quality as art, I don't buy that's a purely subjective, arbitrary opinion (meaning, I think it's reasonable to use some judgment). But people still differ greatly: look at their responses to abstract expressionism, for example; some people think it's trash, others pay tens of millions.

There is plenty of ugly in cities: There is a lot of ugly architecture; buildings are much more visually prominent and for aesthetics I would remove the ugly ones much sooner than removing the street art. There is ugly advertising and marketing; there are ugly industrial sites on beautiful waterfronts and in neighborhoods.

Should those be subject to the same judgement as some kids expressing themselves? The people who make the buildings, ads, sites have far more power and resources, including enough to make those beautiful. They seem much more responsible for the results than the kids, who may have nothing else.

[lostdog]

Please post your address. I'd like to help make your home "feel alive."

[secretsatan]

I think mostly here in switzerland, it’s tolerated in certain areas, and even directly sponsored, in Lausanne, nearly every pedestrian underpass is completely covered in pretty good work, every bit of street furniture has unique designs that seem to be left alone by taggers, areas that might otherwise be run down are covered in colourful murals that are regularly refreshed, i think this is the right approach.

[gtowey]

My theory is that graffiti is tied to the feeling of lack of agency in one's life. Everyone wants to "make their mark on the world". Some of us get to do that with an interesting career, building a family, getting involved in the community. If you feel excluded from all that, like those things are beyond your reach, you might resort to things like graffiti. IMO it's something that says "I exist, and I can change things around me" for those who don't have a better way to do that.

Based on that we "fix" the problem by making sure that everyone has a chance to make a fulfilling life for themselves. Better & freer education; Healthcare; cost of living & wage support. Etc.

[zdragnar]

That's what therapy is for, not spray paint.

[gtowey]

Ah yes, just what everyone scaping by paycheck to paycheck with no housing security is thinking: "I should go to therapy"

Why, once they do that they'll be pulling themselves up by their boostaps in no time!

[dfxm12]

If you want to dissuade illegal graffiti, give people legal walls.

[thegrim000]

As if there's no creative avenues available for people to express themselves other than spray painting people's property ..

[AngryData]

Are there places people can legally grafitti there? In a number of small towns there are unofficial grafitti rocks or walls in public view that redirects a lot of peoples mischief and desire to display public art. Nobody is in any actual trouble if they are caught painting it although you will lose your paint.

It might not be a total solution, but it could have a significant impact on grafitti other places.

[jorts]

There's Clarion Alley in the heart of the Mission, which I think is open to graffiti, as everything is plastered with it, most of it looking really nice. You can see it on Street View.

[moron4hire]

I understand what you're saying but harsh punishment doesn't really work, they just increase the stakes of the crime and lead to more desperate behavior to avoid getting caught rather than less occurrence of the crime itself. Pretty much the only effective form of crime deterrent is economic development, i.e. give people something else to do.

[squokko]

You jail 100 and the thousands stop doing it.

[cypherg]

an invader mosiac is not graffiti, it's street art, which is more or less the mortal enemy of graff. I'm not even trolling when I say people with attitudes like yours are what legit motivate so many graff writers out there.

[rimbo789]

I like graffiti - even random tags over blank walls because it’s a sign people are truly living and breathing in a space.

As long as there have been walls there has been graffiti. Spaces without graffiti are artificial and antiseptic.

[bigDinosaur]

Graffiti on things like trees (e.g. in urban parks) is awful and trees are the opposite of artificial and antiseptic. The main problem with graffiti is that most of it is made without thought or consideration, and that never ends well.

[direwolf20]

Yes, I think they should avoid covering other works of art, nature, information signs, and windows. But blank space should be fair game.

[nmeofthestate]

Most graffiti is an ugly demoralising reminder of the existence of thoughtless people who have no consideration for others and are happy to degrade the shared public space for a few seconds of selfish enjoyment. For some reason it's got noticeably worse where I live, feels like over the last couple of years.

[GuinansEyebrows]

most modern buildings are an ugly demoralising reminder of the existence of thoughtless people who have no consideration for others and are happy to degrade the shared public space for a few seconds of selfish enjoyment (or in this case, millions of dollars at the public's expense).

[chickensong]

I wish you'd stop being coy and just tell us how you really feel.

[InMice]

I like that part of it too - but feel that if I owned a building and had people spraying paint all over its exterior whenever they felt like it...maybe not so much.

[socalgal2]

Tell me your address so I can come tag your car or your windows or your laptop

Graffiti is property destruction, pure and simple. I'm happy to come destroy your property. Complain and you're a hypocrite

[rimbo789]

There are tags all over my building, it’s lovely. Please come add more

[nemomarx]

Why windows and not their homes walls? People rarely tag windows in my experience, or cars.

[socalgal2]

You don't get to choose what others value. I value my walls being clean. You value your windows and car. If it's not ok for your car and windows to be tagged then it's not okay for others to tag my walls.

[secretsatan]

Oh, i just saw the 20 lashes thing, rather have graffiti than fascists