Let's Ban Billboards

Regulation vs. Total Bans

• Some favor a middle ground: keep billboards but subject them to strict design review, caps, or “on-premises only” rules rather than blanket prohibition.
• Others argue for narrow exceptions (e.g., a few iconic or artistic signs) in otherwise billboard-free cities.
• Incrementalists say billboards are a politically realistic first target; pushing “ban all advertising” up front is seen as self-defeating.

Aesthetics, Safety, and Quality of Life

• Many describe billboard-free places (Vermont, Maine, Alaska, Hawai‘i, certain cities and highways) as noticeably calmer, more beautiful, and less mentally oppressive.
• Billboards are framed as visual pollution that degrades property values, hides landscapes, and creates “garish” cities.
• Driver distraction is a recurring concern: roads create a captive audience, and deliberately attention-grabbing signage is viewed as a safety hazard.

Free Speech, Power, and “Captive Audience”

• One camp sees bans as authoritarian attacks on free speech and property rights: if an owner wants a billboard, that’s their expression.
• Opponents counter that:
  • Public space is shared; banning giant structures is about land use, not censoring ideas.
  • Commercial speech has long been more regulable than political or personal speech.
  • Billboards amplify the voices of wealthy corporations over everyone else, and drivers cannot meaningfully “opt out.”

Advertising, Economy, and Discovery

• Pro‑ad commenters say advertising helps new/small businesses get discovered and can undercut monopolies.
• Anti‑ad commenters reply that:
  • Big firms benefit most from amplification; small players rely more on word of mouth, directories, and search anyway.
  • Advertising is “mental pollution” optimized for manipulation, not information, especially in gambling, junk food, and kid‑targeted markets.
• Some sketch alternative discovery systems (consumer-report–style institutions, peer‑to‑peer recommendation networks).

Defining and Extending “Ban Ads”

• Large subthread debates how to legally define “advertisement”: paid promotion, third‑party payment, in‑kind benefits, first‑party signage, product placement, influencers, etc.
• There’s disagreement on whether a broader ban on paid promotion would be constitutional or practically enforceable, though narrow billboard bans are seen as clearly feasible.

Zoning, Governance, and Policy Examples

• Examples cited: statewide bans, city caps where new billboards require old ones removed, “on-premises only” rules, and near-impossibility of new permits in some countries.
• Some want design boards repurposed from micromanaging siding colors toward restricting visual advertising; others blame such boards for housing scarcity and inequality.
• A minority suggest taxing billboard externalities rather than banning them outright.