Graffiti and its Costs
Graffiti and its Costs
By Lizzy Strange
Whether you roll your eyes whenever you see graffiti or you stop and enjoy the tagged designs as art, graffiti plays a huge role in most every American city’s economics. There has been great controversy over whether or not graffiti is art, and many businesses have allowed and even encouraged their buildings to be covered in street graffiti. Some cities are even pushing towards hiring more artists to create murals on various blank walls or businesses, theatres, etc. Yet despite the support for more art in the city from some businesses, the cost of removing tagged images that are seen in the eyes of the law as vandalism still plays a crucial role in the economics and budget of American cities.
In a news report from KRQE included below, the city of Albuquerque faced such a large graffiti problem that they had more than 70 graffiti clean-up jobs a day for that year. The mayor of the city, Mayor Barry, also commented on the 68,000 calls for graffiti removal that were made that year as well. Since it’s the city’s job to clean up the spray-painted images, the mayor called for an increase in 3 more people on the graffiti removal crew, increasing the budget and concluding a group of 18 people, 15 originally, to clean up the streets (“Major, City”).
Not only will this increase the demand and supply for labor and take money out of the pockets of the taxpayers and the city government, but the cost of the time and resources used to clean up this graffiti is not something that is easily made back either. For some people, the issue of graffiti brings people out of the crowd to speak up about the topic. David Brant of San Clemente, California, sent a letter to the editor of the San Clemente Times after hearing about an art endeavor by Joshua Host of the House of Trestles to bring art to the city. Brant commented on the idea to bring street artists to this project with a more cynical point of view, saying, “I hope that Mr. Host and Mr. Heinz realize that Bandit and other street ‘artists’ create graffiti throughout San Clemente on public and private property that the city of San Clemente spends thousands of dollars yearly to remove” (Brant, David). Even though Host never publicly announced his endorsement of all graffiti, Brant still has a point; despite all the efforts some people and artists may take to bring art to any city, there still lingers the type of graffiti that is tagged alongside businesses and buildings that never asked for the images, and is seen as a violation of the property. In Arizona, graffiti and other criminal damage according to Haley Walters of the News-Herald Havasu News is not taken lightly: “Under Arizona law, criminal damage can be a felony offense if the cost of damage exceeds $1,000” (Walters, Haley).
From California to New Mexico and most all American states in between, graffiti is a cost that all cities must take into consideration and make room for in their budgets when they are deciding how to reduce the amount of damaging graffiti their city experiences. It would be interesting to see an increase in city murals and more local artists express their art on the sides of businesses and other buildings, but before the economy can decide what art they want put up around their cities they must first examine the costs of removing all their unwanted graffiti. Whether or not you see graffiti as art, the fact still remains that there is vandalism in cities that is costing these cities a lot of money and is an issue for their economies.
Works Cited
Brant, David. “Letter: Street Artists Costs Taxpayers, Property Owners.” San Clemente Times, San Clemente Times, 22 Dec. 2016, http://www.sanclementetimes.com/letter-street-artists-costs-taxpayers-property-owners/.
“Graffiti City Wallpapers HD download free.” (Image) Pixels Talk, PixelsTalk.Net, 28 Dec. 2015, http://www.pixelstalk.net/graffiti-city-wallpapers-hd-download-free/.
“Graffiti Removal.” (Image) GHB Window Cleaning Services Incorporated, GHB Window Cleaning, 2017, http://ghbwindowcleaning.com/graffiti-removal.
“Mayor, City Council proposed budgets seek 3 more graffiti removal workers.” (Video) KRQE News 13, YouTube, LLC, 16 May 2016, https://youtu.be/jQ2x9zu5czs.
Walters, Haley. “Rash of graffiti incidents reported this week.” Today’s News-Herald Havasu News, Havasu News, 5 Jan. 2017, http://www.havasunews.com/news/rash-of-graffiti-incidents-reported-this-week/article_c83e8b98-d30f-11e6-8f24-37d658ced576.html.
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