I am asking a question ,why? ,so I feel this might be the place.
In the photo-a-day section, I am posting pictures of Hong Kong, where I live, and Satguru is posting pictures of North London. I was struck by the fact that many areas of London are spoiled by graffiti and we so rarely see any here. I am guessing why it is: Hong Kong people have to work hard. There is no dole.Also government pensions and health benefits are so low it is advisable to keep working. Therefore, Hong Kong working people are proud of whet they have paid for, constructed and have to show the outside world. That is the attitude. Although the underground railway system(MTR) is now about 25 years old and the KCR(Overground) much older, you would never see graffiti. The trains also have no dirt and rubbish in them, they are nearly always squeaky clean. I am usually struck by the poor condition of the trains in London, and by the way the streets are marred by graffiti. I would like to know why, and to hear peoples' opinions.
Don't get me wrong, Hong Kong has its share of mucky areas, much of which add to the intrigue. It is not sterile and boring like Singapore. But the public buildings here are a source of pride and valued as such.

Why? is my question too. After the 1989 Romanian Revolution people got all the freedom they want and now we're suffocated, here in Bucharest, by graffiti.

Ren, make sure you never visit Bucharest - most of the underground trains are totally covered in that and very few statues/monuments were left untouched.

To me this is like 'murder' and calls for public hanging - mind you, I am the epitome of non-violence .

In my old fashioned and conservative ways, I am thinking that as long as paper, cardboard, fabrics, glass and any other piece of material are still available, there's no need to use your (sometimes dubious) talents on public buildings and transportation vehicles.

I don't know official reasons, but would guess the Chinese culture educates the children to respect their elders (well known) and their environment. All the Asian families in London tend to bring their children up this way and I can't imagine any of them contributing to the graffiti everywhere. And I've never seen any round here in Chinese either

I have visited Rome and was shocked by the graffiti problem there. It made me understand why the word has it's roots in Italian! There was even graffiti on the outside of the Colosseum and other historical sites which angered me. The underground metro trains/stations are absolutely covered in it. I do see some where I live on bridges and the occasional sign but not really a problem.

At least I had a glimpse of a different culture in Italy and that was the idea!

The oddest thing was Winchester Cathedral where many expert stonemasons (and not expert) have carved their names all over the inner walls with dates going back hundreds of years. The marking of territory seems universal but the respect for the territory varies. These kids don't realise they are mucking up their own environment as well as everyone else's.

As I recall, even the walls of ancient Pompeii and Herculaneum are covered with ribald insults and political catch phrases.

I never understood the reasons people feel they need to deface other peoples' property. We never ever saw graffiti in this part of the country until about five years ago. [The exception being the box cars down by the railroad tracks, which travel from coast to coast, and are often parked for short periods about a mile from here.] Now our residential area fences and park trash cans are covered in Spanish language insults and gang related code. It's frightening.

I have often simultaneously gritted my teeth and admired the skill of some [especially] trainyard artists. It's a tragedy these people can't find the gumption to leave their street lives behind somehow and do something with that fabulous talent.

Our trains, stations, and other buildings can look disgraceful, but even when the 'artists' are caught, there seems that they are still above the law.

Local councils, who are responsible for a large share of cleaning, cannot allow the vandals to clean their own damage up, because of industrial safety rules and Occupational Health and Safety concerns- they are NOT allowed to use the chemicals that are used for the paint stripping!

See here for more.

Political graffiti has a long standing tradition in some places, but tagging is what bothers most of us. The use of public places for tag style gang markings is the one thing that most people object to.

My school had a few policies to make our 'stay' more pleasant for an overcrowded 320 square mile district shipping us all into one campus. They made a graffiti wall that recognized this tradition of free speech or what have you, but, making the rest of the school off limits for imagery unless approved by the student government and the administration. It was closer to the bulletin boards or the forums on the internet than graffiti of course, but it served a real purpose. My own projects for mural painting on surfaces were a competition and to give us professional experience in submitting projects etc. You had to submit proposals etc.

In France, you cannot even put up a wall in any country setting now with fresh paint for fear of it getting tagged.
Tagging is on all the metal curtains of the shops in any city and on the walls of the towns.

I've always figured that tagging style markings were territory markings.
It costs the towns an enormous amount of money getting it off though.

Here in California, It's not much of a problem. Yes, we have bridges where the entire underside is graffitied, but no one really goes down there often. Other than that, if someone tags something - be it the side of a store or someone's fence around their backyard - the owner just paints over it and gets on with life.

I haven't visited Amsterdam recently, but it used to have a serious graffiti problem, with many otherwise beautiful buildings defaced by meaningless and badly done swirls, blobs and slogans.
I've seen films of New York subway carriages covered in awful grafitti, far, far worse than anything in London, but the city buildings don't seem to suffer graffiti attacks.
Sometimes graffiti can be skilfully and artistically done, and is encouraged in some locations. Occasionally it can send a justified protest against authoritarian governments or policies, but for the most part it's simply an eyesore.

I just saw a commercial on TV for the 'Mural Arts Project', a funded program for inner city youth; basically formal training for the graffiti-gifted. As a background for the announcer, pictures were shown of entire buildings covered with graffiti (referred to as 'city art' and 'cultural expression' by the announcer). The colors were certainly vibrant and the designs intricate and I suppose meaningful to some. I found them an eye-sore, totally inappropriate for the setting in which they are found -- are purple and yellow swirls, an elderly black woman bent over vegetables and assorted letters of the alphabet Renaissance, Early American or Gothic?

I also wonder why some consider defacing property an art form; I consider it vandalism. And the perpitrator (or his/her parent if a minor) should be made to clean it up or pay a substantial fine.

Now it appears that some are taking a 'if you can't lick them. join them' approach. I think it's appalling that formal lessons in graffiti are considered as some kind of solution. That does nothing but legitimize vandalism and encourages its spread.

In Philadelphia we had a big problem with graffiti.

Over the years though it seems to have become much better.

The murals that South Philadelphia have of former Mayor Frank Rizzo, Entertainers Sal Mineo and Frank Sinatra, were all done by graffiti artists as a form of punishment.

The murals turned out wonderful and since all those years back, the graffiti artists are hired for special events, such as fundraisers. Their unique style and talent do get noticed. They also have a recreation center for kids to hang out, as opposed to them hanging on corners and spraying painting people's homes and cars with vulgar graffiti. The graffiti artists also go round to the schools and give lectures about why graffiting is wrong, and what each can do to work towards a specific goal.

Don't get me wrong we still get the occasional vulgar and obscene graffiti, and a good bit of "Karin Loves (with a heart) Jimmy" type stuff, but the graffiti is nowhere like it used to be.

The only buildings that tend to have the vulgar graffiti, are those businesses which are owned and operated by Asians.

The lady where I get my pedicure at, her name is Jackie, and she is Vietnamiese. She is a very nice lady. Unfortunately, the local graffitiers have attacked her place of business several times. I do not condone this, and I feel so bad for her when this happens to her business. I often find myself wondering why people are so bigoted!

However, the only plus side to it, as she said, is that she has a graffiti hotline number to call and City Hall sends someone over to remove the vulgar and slanderous graffiti, free of charge.

I think that is the least the City Council can do, seeing as they cannot catch those that have done the deed.

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Agnes (JTJ)

People around here are angry because a new a ordinance says that [ supposedly] to send these people a message, the OWNER of defaced property is under obligation to PAY to have the graffiti removed within 48 hours, or face a fine. [leaving a fresh canvas for next Friday night, in most cases]

Basically, as in all other arenas of our regional 'problem' - the violators get off scott free and innocent citizens are left to deal with the consequences.

I dont like graffiti so much but i live in scotland but its just like london .

vendome wrote:

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Now it appears that some are taking a 'if you can't lick them. join them' approach.

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Agreed. I too think the authorities allowing 'artistic' graffiti is just an admission that they are unable to stop the defacing of buildings/walls.

When I was a teenager back in the 1960s Stonehenge was open to the public all the time, you could sit on stones etc. The graffiti was awful, mostly names and dates. No wonder they keep people away from the stones now.

We get a little here, not huge amounts.

Graffiti occurs here sporadically.. almost always political and usually so offensive to some group or other that it gets erased pretty fast. I haven't seen any new graffiti in a while but there has been a calm. Graffiti that remains is usually of the 'Yoav and Sigalit were here' variety or anything written in out of the way places.

Was it Hong Kong or Singapore that an American lad was imprisoned and then cained for graffiti about ten years ago? It was a big deal while it was building up to the caining.

But on the topic of graffiti I think it is done by those who feel they have no voice. Consider where it's to found primarily and it seems to hold some truth e.g. minority neighborhoods, poor neighborhoods often the same as the first mentioned, politically oppressed. It's a way for a person to express their concerns. If you look at some of the recurring themes in these vandalism they are often times screaming out about serious subjects like drug abuse and murders.