Market Urbanism

Liberalizing cities | From the bottom up

“Market Urbanism” refers to the synthesis of classical liberal economics and ethics (market), with an appreciation of the urban way of life and its benefits to society (urbanism). We advocate for the emergence of bottom up solutions to urban issues, as opposed to ones imposed from the top down.

Street art: violation of property rights or positive emergent order?

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Among Egypt’s pro-democracy protesters, graffiti has played an important role in the communication, providing a
platform for free speech under military rule. The Associated Press reports:

Graffiti has turned into perhaps the most fertile artistic expression of Egypt’s uprising, shifting rapidly to keep up with events. Faces of protesters killed or arrested in crackdowns are common subjects — and as soon as a new one falls, his face is ubiquitous nearly the next day.

The face of Khaled Said, a young man whose beating death at the hands of police officers in 2010 helped fuel the anti-Mubarak uprising, even appeared briefly on the walls of the Interior Ministry, the daunting security headquarters that few would dare even approach in the past.

Other pieces mock members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the council of generals that is now in power, or figures from Mubarak’s regime.

While this artistic movement in the Arab Spring puts the importance of freedom of expression in sharp relief, we of course more typically see graffiti and street art in freer societies where the act is often seen not as political uprising but as mindless vandalism. As a big believer in the power of property rights, I feel like I should be against street art as clear violations of building owners’ rights. However, it’s hard to argue that illegal street art doesn’t add something valuable to cities both visually and culturally, in times of peace as well as times of civil uprising.

It would be nice to suggest that a signalling mechanism could show artists on which buildings their work is permissible, but, not knowing much about the culture of street art or graffiti, I imagine that decriminalizing this art form would destroy it. What do you all think of unsanctioned street art? Does it make a difference if the building is industrial, retail, office, or residential?

Does it make a difference if it’s high brow street art like this?

(Who wouldn’t want a Banksy original on their wall?)

As opposed to more chaotic graffiti like this?

What do you all think is the appropriate response to graffiti from law enforcement and communities?

P.S. On the subject of city streets, thank you to Charlie Gardner and Flickr user hazer2006 for adding some great photos to the Market Urbanism Flickr Group.

Filed Under: Law

  • IOI

    In some vulgar sort of way, couldn’t this see construed as public-sphere truly functioning as a space that is “owned” by the people, for the people?  The term “tagging” (often used to refer to the act of making “street art”) alludes to a sense of ownership and is often a way for gangs in inner cities to mark their territories or for individuals to claim their self-hood in an environment marginalized by society.  

  • EDG reppin’ LBC

    I love the designs, concepts, and execution of graffiti. I hate that it is often perpetrated on private property.

  • Emily Washington

    It’s definitely true that graffiti is often used for derogatory, violent messages as well as more positive expression. Do you think this correlation is more significant in the U.S. than in other countries?

  • Anonymous

    To read that any part of you thinks vandalism a public good makes me very close to cutting the RSS feed. Even if all of it were Banksy quality, the vast majority of property owners would hate any “art” they did not get to choose and would be forced to pay for its removal. And to keep paying for its removal, time and again. Imagine a qualified interior decorator throwing out all your stuff and decorating your apartment to his fringe taste, without your permission. You just coming home and realizing someone had had his way with your property.

    But, of course, most of the stuff that’s actually trying to be decorative is utterly terrible, something that, if the building owner had commissioned it, the neighbors would petition the city to force him to remove. Now it’s a six year old decorating your apartment and undoing all your decorating and forcing you to undo the damage.

    And yet all this talk of aspiring artists still misses the real point. 95 percent of it isn’t trying to be art at all. It is simply a thug trying to destroy someone’s property and mark territory for fun. It’s rather like the “art” of throwing rocks through windows. Does part of you support that as a vital expression of discontent or perhaps political protest that deserves free speech protection?

    And graffiti hurts more than just property owners. Any more than a smattering of it in any neighborhood makes everyone feel slightly uncomfortable about walking the streets of said neighborhood because its presence signals to any sane people that normal rules of law and order do not apply in that neighborhood. You scoff, no doubt, but I’m guessing you’ve never lived in a place with real graffiti because you’re way to young to remember New York before 1995. You’ve just heard people telling you how vibrant it all was, how alive everyone felt. The truth is that is was just alarming. In all but the best neighborhoods — places that were still pretty nice and not actually dangerous — there was enough of that decay and vandalism and signs of danger that you were always alert when walking the sidewalks at night. Not panicked but alert. It was a low level stress and it took its toll.

    So, for the sake a of every one piece of real art — which will still be enjoyed by only a minority of people who see it — part of you thinks it would be a good idea to to allow 5 hideous “works” that no one will like (like the last photo in your post) and 95 malicious attempts to destroy property. And you also think that one work justifies forcing property owners to collectively pay millions of dollars to undo the damage and forcing people who live in those “vibrant” neighborhoods to walk around in subconscious fear that they’re not in a truly safe place.

    I’m not sure you’ve really thought enough about what makes urban life nice to be writing for an urban blog. I really hope someone “decorates” a very valuable piece of your property and clarifies your thinking on this matter.

  • Mehssdd

    I am glad to see this blog venturing into a complex and delicate subject like street art. As someone who generally enjoys street art (including your counterpoint to Banksy) and slow down to read tags on buildings, I think that bringing graffiti in from the cold is a worthwhile project. Building owners designating acceptable places for tags seems like a good place to start. One suspects that kneejerk oppositions like the one put forward by Scoop are driven as much by aesthetic motives as by concern over property rights.

  • Harold

    To begin with, the whole point of graffiti is that it is illegal. Its “artness” is defined by its placement, and when you put the same stuff in a gallery or on a legal wall most of its interesting qualities just disappear.

    In the same way that writers must expect that their art will be washed away sooner or later, property owners have to come to terms with the fact that a completely graffiti-less city is a dream of modernists. Decriminalization is morally wrong and instrumentally pointless, but defacement is an inescapable and occasionally appreciated part of urban life. That is, if you wouldn’t prefer to have fingermen lurking in every alley and street corner of the city 24/7. 

    In this sense, it is pointless to be for or against graffiti, it just is.

    Sidenote: in Stockholm, most graffiti seems to be placed on publicly owned concrete. While I suspect this has most to do with the fact that private property is better guarded and any graffiti there is more promptly washed off, there is also a feeling that genuinely owned property is afforded a measure of respect.

  • Cash

    Graffiti doesn’t add dick to a city.  Most of it is pure garbage. To think it adds anything is pure confirmation bias.  A few bright pieces get remembered but we forget all the tagged overpasses, train yards, etc.

    It’s possible to have privately sanctioned, beautiful “graffiti” murals.  I used to live in midtown Sacramento, and numerous businesses had striking urban murals. Barbershops, corner stores, and delis alike.  Those added something.  Gang tags on subways? No thank you.

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