PLATFORM : Legal Graffiti
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The more punitive or law-and- order approaches like staking out a wall or going around and cracking down on graffiti writers, banning the sale of spray paint and things like that have made little or no impact. New York City is a classic example of (the failure of) these traditional approaches.
A solution would be a combination of legal forms for graffiti art, like the program in Huntington Beach with the seawall. It’s about a half-mile long, and the aerosol art murals are all clean and they’re not being defaced by other writers.
Just one approach is not going to make a dent in the overall problem, but these legal walls, and programs in community centers where writers can go to learn and teach each other how to improve their artistic skills--a comprehensive system that includes programs like those--are the best way of decreasing illegal graffiti.
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