In a column for The Boston Globe, Billy Baker argues that billboards are a visual blight, pointing out that four states have outlawed them.
The realization struck during a routine drive, courtesy of a personal injury lawyer pointing from a sign, a marijuana dispensary promising kind buds, and a car dealership shouting about low prices. These outdoor displays are unavoidable, Baker writes, having somehow become normalized and granted powers that regular brick-and-mortar businesses never receive.
Hawaii, Alaska, Vermont, and Maine have outlawed the practice. John Kessler, chair of the Travel Information Council in Vermont—which passed its ban in 1968, inspiring Maine a decade later—says travelers consistently rank the lack of billboards as their favorite thing about the state.
Mark Falzone, president of the Washington, D.C., nonprofit Scenic America and a former state representative for Saugus and surrounding communities, warns that fighting back means taking on a multibillion-dollar industry. Three large companies—Lamar, Clear Channel, and OUTFRONT Media—control roughly a quarter-million billboards.
Your life is now ruined. You’ll never unsee a billboard again.
Falzone told Baker, adding a warning not to start asking questions about overhead utility cables.
Falzone takes direct aim at the Out of Home Advertising Association of America, the main trade group for the billboard industry, which publishes studies claiming signs do not distract drivers.
Their very purpose is to take eyes off the road and onto their product, but they claim it’s not a distraction.
Falzone states, arguing that the danger has increased in the era of constantly changing digital billboards.
When Baker reached out to an OAAA spokesperson to offer an opportunity to defend the industry, he never heard back. Meanwhile, Scenic America provides model legislation based on the frameworks used by Hawaii, Alaska, Vermont, and Maine to help other regions pursue bans.
Achieving a statewide ban involves halting new permits and making existing structures noncompliant. To handle property loss without direct state payouts, an amortization process allows owners to keep displays up for a set number of years, letting earnings replace state compensation.
The billboard industry hates amortization and has tried to pass laws to disallow the practice.
Falzone explains.
But it works, and it may take a number of years, but eventually they’ll all be gone.
Other jurisdictions have chipped away at outdoor advertising through various restrictions. Oregon placed a cap on signs in 2007 requiring an existing structure to come down before a new one goes up. An estimated 700 communities worldwide have enacted bans, including São Paulo, Brazil, in 2006 and Grenoble, France, in 2014, while San Francisco barred new billboards in 2002.
Yet Falzone notes that certain massive displays contribute to placemaking. Landmarks like Times Square, the Las Vegas Strip, and the signs along Route 1 in Saugus serve as markers of identity.
Baker concedes that while some signs fit their local surroundings—such as the Citgo sign at Fenway Park—most modern billboards destroy their surroundings and make every town look like Anyplace USA.
