Billboard Blitz (Drink This!) Alters Landscape (Buy That!) of City

Here is yet another article on a city overrun by outdoor signage and commercial messaging. What is interesting is that this article does begin to address some of the often neglected issues with the proliferation of outdoor media in the public landscape instead of falling back on the civic beauty arguments which often support anti-billboard propaganda but fail to get at the more pressing issues behind monetizing public space. As with Sao Paolo, where the removal of commercial media resulted in the discovery of failing infrastructure and even an entire favella previously unknown to Sao Paolo's residents, Cairo's outdoor advertising network hides growing class divides between the haves and the have nots. Put more succinctly,

This (outdoor advertising) may seem a trivial issue in a city where so many residents face serious difficulties like poverty and health concerns. But it is often these symptoms of systemic dysfunction, the head-splitting noise, the piles of trash, the gut-gripping traffic — the jumble of billboards — that make the days so hard to get through. All over the city, people say, the billboard frenzy has reinforced a sense of alienation. They say they see that there is money, and they know they do not have it, another unintended consequence of economic growth that has so far failed to help lift the poor.

VIA The New York Times

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

CAIRO — There are just too many billboards in Cairo.

No one is quite sure, exactly, when a lot became too many. Maybe it was when row after row of billboards began taking over sidewalks, making a difficult city to navigate even more difficult.

Or maybe it was when what seemed like every light post was fitted with an advertisement, or two. Or perhaps it was when billboards massive enough to mount atop high-rise buildings were bolted alongside the Nile. (Or for that matter when the billowing sails of the majestic felucca boats on the river were painted over as advertisements, too.) [More Here]