Most people will pay hard-earned money to avoid advertisements. Unfortunately, when we drive around our cities, we don’t have that option. Billboard companies sell our attention and our peace of mind. It’s time for Utah to stand up to take down billboards.
Billboards assault our privacy, distract our driving and obscure our natural beauty. If we continue to let the billboard industry run wild in Utah, we are letting an insidious cancer grow. Apart from the obvious visual impact on our landscape, there is an effect of outdoor advertising that disproportionately impacts communities already disadvantaged by poverty and racism. Our state lawmakers have accepted donations and free advertising from the billboard industry and repay them with billboard-friendly bills. Utah needs to end this corrupt coddling and borrow solutions from states and cities that have successfully bucked the billboard problem.
What’s the big deal? Studies of outdoor advertising in America link it with a range of public health issues, include problem drinking, tobacco use, light pollution and even obesity. New digital billboards distract drivers and contribute to fatal motor vehicle accidents. Outdoor advertising promotes problematic themes such as drinking alcohol, unhealthy eating and unrealistic portrayals of body image that reduce self-esteem. Furthermore, evidence suggests that disadvantaged and vulnerable communities are bearing the cost of unsightly outdoor advertising and feeling its impacts disproportionately. According to a Philadelphia study, homes within 500 feet of a billboard were worth $31,000 less at time of sale than those further away. The proliferation of billboards in poor communities is a practice that contributes to social and racial oppression.
The billboard problem is especially bad in Utah. No state allows more outdoor advertising per capita than Utah, which ranks 30th in population and sixth in total billboards. Much of this is due to billboard-friendly legislation.
In Utah, billboards are classified as personal property, which makes them especially costly for governments to remove. In Utah, billboards must be bought out for the full price of the expected revenue stream plus additional cost to the reputation of billboard companies. Utah cities are also required to remove any structures, including trees, which might block the view of a billboard. These political concessions can be credited in no small part to the efforts of Reagan Outdoor Advertising (ROA), which has headquarters in Salt Lake City. Governor Herbert has reportedly received tens of thousands of dollars in donations from ROA. As a whole, the outdoor advertising industry has spent over $1 million supporting Utah state candidates in the last 20 years.
“This is about more than whether a billboard is ugly or not,” says Dennis Hatheway, founder of Ban Billboard Blight, a Los Angeles advocacy organization. “Our public space should promote values of democracy … instead of corporate values.”
No city lives up to Hatheway’s vision quite like São Paulo, Brazil, which passed a Clean City law in 2006, which banned outdoor advertising outright. I visited the city in 2018 and marveled at magnificent street compositions and vast murals that transformed many public places into outdoor art galleries.
Closer to home, the states Maine, Vermont, Hawaii and Alaska have cleared the way by successfully enacting full bans on outdoor advertising. These are states that attract tourists seeking refuge in natural landscapes and an escape from exactly what billboards represent.
An estimated 75% of Utahns agree that “billboards are a total eyesore in our community and they have no redeeming value,” according to a 2019 poll by the American Institute of Applied Politics. The time has come for a bipartisan majority of Utah to organize and reclaim our beautiful land and culture from unwelcome advertisements.
John Wyman is a Salt Lake City resident and a graduate student in the University of Utah’s Master of Social Work program.