[JadeNB]

> Many people would feel safer in Lee Kwan Yew's Singapore than in the USA. Better housing and health policy, less graffiti and street violence.

Of all the things wrong with the USA, when picking just two, it seems strange for one of them to be graffiti. I have lived in the USA all my life, in some more and some less urban areas, and even from the people most afraid of cities I have never heard graffiti mentioned as a serious worry or complaint.

[ggm]

Eh, you're right. It's just a bugbear for me, tagging and social cohesion decline feels like a parallel, but it may be my projection. I'm in Crete right now and it's decaying beauty, no money for streetscape fixes, bad pavements and unending dissatisfaction written all over the marble walls.

I may be displaying my age. Feeling safe equates to being on the street, and unafraid. The tagging isn't the problem the social conditions which ignore it, maybe are.

[watwut]

In some places, graffiti means "gang activity" as local gangs tag their turf. If you are from such place, then it kinda makes sense to be afraid of graffity.

But where I am from, there are two kinds of graffity:

- Cool elaborate pictures, usually in "legal zones" walls city dedicated to it. They take time to create, hence preference for legal place and are made by artists.

- Less cool stuff created by skinny "edgy" teenagers, who are jerks to the owners, but also completely harmless.

[ggm]

Completely harmless needs contextualising. In gross sense, no: damage to property is not harmless, it has consequences, costs. In personal safety terms sure tagging isn't mugging.

If you're down Proudhon's "all property is theft" then graffiti is a kind of tragedy of the commons. Go ahead. Graffiti the Uffitzi, Nelson's column, the Plaka. Stick it to the man!

[watwut]

My point was that there is nothing to fear of. And yes, I said there that they are jerks to owner. Which they are. But, it is not putting anyone in any kind of danger and there is no reason to be scared.

> If you're down Proudhon's "all property is theft" then graffiti is a kind of tragedy of the commons. Go ahead. Graffiti the Uffitzi, Nelson's column, the Plaka. Stick it to the man!

I honestly don't get what are you on about here. I never seen anyone interpret graffiti as some kind of political statement, unless it is swastika or some such. I genuinely doubt any teenager doing graffiti has any kind of idea about any of those names.

[ggm]

An immense amount of graffiti in Europe is overtly political. And in south America. I know from personal experience. Crete is a hotbed of radicalism and has a massive amount of antizionist graffiti. South America has anti junta statements and support for shining path.

[keiferski]

I don’t understand why people just tolerate graffiti. It’s ugly and makes buildings look worse. Aesthetics matter.

Nothing more irritating that having your apartment building get a fresh coat of paint, look great, and then someone writing scribble tags all over it.

[socalgal2]

I'm with you. Graffiti is property destruction. It shows lack of respect for property rights. Respect for property rights is highly correlated with prosperity and that includes prosperity for those without property.

[JadeNB]

> Respect for property rights is highly correlated with prosperity and that includes prosperity for those without property.

I think that this sounds good and is a sensible hypothesis, but it's far from clear to me that the corollary of prosperity for those without property is true in practice.

[socalgal2]

Why? Do the riches cities have the poorest poor or is it generally the richest cities have the both the richest poor and the most support for them.

[JadeNB]

> Why? Do the riches cities have the poorest poor or is it generally the richest cities have the both the richest poor and the most support for them.

I don't know. Do you? If the latter answer is correct and it's backed up by quantitative evidence, then I guess that I have to accept at least some form of the corollary, although there are still games that one can play with measurement (for example, it's possible that being numerically richer in those richer settings can still result in poorer overall quality of life).

[GenerWork]

Greece has always had a huge problem with graffiti. I did a semester abroad in Athens, new graffiti popped up all the time, but I never felt unsafe.

[nick__m]

It's really an old problem, there were graffiti in Greece in 200AD !

[tim333]

Graffiti tends to be a visual indicator of lawlessness and petty crime.

[JadeNB]

From that perspective, the problems are lawlessness and petty crime, not the graffiti. I would not feel safer in a place just because it had reduced the symptoms of those things, unless it had also reduced those things themselves, in which case the latter is the accomplishment.

[linksnapzz]

Did you know anyone who owned a building that had been tagged?

[watwut]

You was never attacked by a wild graffiti jumping out of the wall to beat you up? weird /s

[anyonecancode]

A graffito, or a pack of graffiti ;-)