Banning visual pollution

São Paulo: A City Without Ads

In 2007, the world’s fourth-largest metropolis and Brazil’s most important city, São Paolo, became the first city outside of the communist world to put into effect a radical, near-complete ban on outdoor advertising. Known on one hand for being the country’s slick commercial capital and on the other for its extreme gang violence and crushing poverty, São Paolo’s “Lei Cidade Limpa” or Clean City Law was an unexpected success, owing largely to the singular determination of the city’s conservative mayor, Gilberto Kassab.

I hope this idea spreads far and wide... kindof like banning smoking.