SEARCH

Subscribe to our newsletter:

Name:

Email:

where do you live?
UK BRAZIL SOMEWHERE ELSE

SÃO PAULO: one year without ads. What the city is doing about it?

no signs |After the initial crossover period, which left the city littered with the carcasses of torn down billboards and signs, spaces once taken up by major advertising have now given way to small signs featuring shop names, because it’s not only public spaces that have been forced to comply with the norms set down by the Clean City Law, shops and businesses have been forced to fall in line as well. Each establishment is allowed to put up a single sign featuring all the necessary information that the public needs to know. What’s more, the advert cannot exceed a fixed size, which is defined in accordance to the size of the building in question.

Businesses without the time or the money to put up new signs have had to use temporary advertisements in order to hold onto more imprudent customers. The Business Association of São Paulo reveals that 60% of all shops are sporting new signs. The organisation believes that by April 2008 the transition should be complete.

But if you want to see how businesses have managed to get around the legislation, just take a stroll through the city centre. Famous addresses such as 25 de Março and Rua Augusta are littered with so-called “little signs”. That means that the chaos is diminished, but there’s still a lack of beauty in the urban landscape of the city.

in the people’s sight | People passing through the city centre on a daily basis say that little has changed. For most, São Paulo is still chaotic, with lots of traffic and buildings stacked up against one another. The new law is popular with the locals, but few people are as excited about the “transformation” the city has undergone as the authorities seem to be.

In reality, few Paulistanos even notice the difference: when asked about the effects of the law, they need time and help to come up with an answer. “I don’t see any difference. For me, the whole city is ugly. I don’t notice if there are less billboards”, explains 19 year old Rafael Texeira, who sells newspapers on a stall in Largo São Bento. According to two policemen who work in the area around Rua 25 de Março, the placards used to draw attention away from the dirty, abandoned shop fronts and buildings. “The city council goes on and on about this law, but life is still difficult and violent for the rest of the population”, confessed the policeman, who preferred not to give his name, and who’s patrolled the city centre over the past 4 years.

18 year old road sweep Reginaldo da Silva admits that the city has become more organised, but laments his friends’ unemployment. “Lots of people lost their jobs after this law was passed. I know one person who used to paint notices and now he doesn’t know what to do with himself”. This was the Outdoor Advertising Trade Union of São Paulo’s strongest argument against the law: at the time the law was passed by the local authorities, the organisation estimated that somewhere between 18 to 20 thousand people would lose their jobs. A year later, the Business Association of São Paulo, who agreed with this pessimistic prediction, takes a milder view: “There are no statistics to prove that unemployment has increased due to the new legislation, but we know that several businesses have had to shut down during this period”, reveals Roberto Mateus Ordine, one of the organisation’s directors.

“The law has definitely caught on”, reveals Ordine, referring to the way businesses have adhered to the new legislation. The director of the Association still makes a point of emphasising that the local authorities and shop owners are still in disagreement. According to Roberto, there are still questions regarding shop fronts: traders have received fines even when they thought that they were following the rules set down by the new law. “When the building is of historic importance, you have to follow a special architectural scheme. But when this isn’t the case, shop owners are free to do as they like. But there have been cases where the local authorities have felt that certain changes have broken the guidelines set down by the law”, explains Ordine. According to the director, some businesses have spent up to £55,000 in order to comply with the authorities’ demands.

Shop owners linked to the Business Association are unanimous when it comes to one negative aspect of the Clean City Law: a number of tourist points in São Paulo have lost their characteristic charm. Liberdade is a prime example: the neighbourhood’s oriental decor has been taken down from the street. “Tourists come here wanting to get to know the Liberdade that they’ve seen in films about Brasil. ‘It’s been relegated to the history books’, I try and explain to them”, laments the son of Oriental immigrants who grew up amid the traditional decoration of Brasil’s China Town.

TAGS

city, paulo, sao