Toronto taxes billboards to pay for public art (Albuquerque, Santa Fe: how much, tile)

[abqdwell]

Wish Albuquerque had the vision and leadership to do what Toronto just got accomplished: taxing billboards to fund public art.

[Zoidberg]

The city that brought you the classic car covered with bathroom tile and the hideous tricentennial towers might not be the best judge of good art.

Still, if they taxed billboards to flush money down the drain, maybe there'd be fewer ones and I wouldn't be that opposed to that.

[abqdwell]

It's kind of hard to believe that billboards aren't taxed as they only take from a city. In ABQ they take or obscure our tremendous landscape. Ever notice how much more attractive Santa Fe looks from the road? If I'm an out of town visitor, I think much less of ABQ because of the horrific sign blight marring our beautiful vistas.

[karmathecat]

Let's do what Vermont did and get rid of them completely.

Scenic America :: Vermont - Proud to be Billboard Free! (http://www.scenic.org/billboards/case_studies/vermont - broken link)

[abqdwell]

But Karmathecat, what about the economic impact? I'm kidding, of course. The economic impact in the other direction would more than make up for it. Why do we give away our vistas to corporation's like Clear Channel?

[rybert]

Originally Posted by Zoidberg

The city that brought you the classic car covered with bathroom tile and the hideous tricentennial towers might not be the best judge of good art.

Still, if they taxed billboards to flush money down the drain, maybe there'd be fewer ones and I wouldn't be that opposed to that.

The car is awesome!

[RamblinRoseRanch]

On the other side of the coin, billboards are sometimes the only thing that keeps an area/group of businesses going. Of course, i'm looking at this from a rural standpoint. Torrance County is in the works of creating amendments and rules for future and current billboards- to prevent the catastrophic mess ala Clines Corners from happening again.

[abqdwell]

Can't be much of business if it's existence is dependent on a billboard. Sorry.

[karmathecat]

Plenty of small businesses in Vermont...what businesses in ABQ depend on billboard advertisement?

[abqdwell]

Only Clear Channel!