Anyone who’s seen writing in a Valley Life Sciences Building bathroom stall or tags at the Pacific Steel Casting site ane down any street in Berkeley is aware of the prevalence of graffiti in the city and the Bay Area at large. Cities are also aware, spending millions each year on graffiti removal.
Graffiti — which in this piece encompasses all writing and drawing on a public surface created independently of a government or business — is necessary, natural and beautiful, even when it doesn’t conform to white-washed and state-sanctioned aesthetics of “beauty.”
Like any speech or art, graffiti can incite violence, reflect hate or be found objectionable. But there’s nothing about the medium which makes it inherently dangerous.
Many criticisms of graffiti rely on broken window theory, which argues small signs of disorder, such as graffiti, enable and escalate into other forms of illegal activity, such as violent crime. But this argument doesn’t hold water.
A study on Belo Horizonte, Brazil, found no statistically significant relationship between graffiti and violent crimes.
The study also highlights that while other forms of crime seek “anonymity and invisibility,” graffiti writers take pride in their work and seek visibility. As a result, the authors argue that rather than a sign of social deterioration, graffiti is an indicator of “social and cultural vibrancy.” As writers place their art in well-populated areas to gain visibility, graffiti functions as both a manifestation and source of local pride.
While that study covers only one city, past research has also not found a consistent association between graffiti and violent crime. In contrast, extensive research shows investment in communities, regardless of form, correlates with a decrease in crime. Investment includes art, which includes graffiti.
To be clear, I’m not advocating for open season on every wall in the city — nor do most writers. Many advocate a culture of mutual respect for those they share cities with, not painting on independent stores, homes or the work of fellow writers. I feel similarly and I understand why individuals would want to control the appearance of their homes and businesses.
But for utilitarian and nonpersonal pieces of property — pieces such as “beige municipal walls, dumpsters, electrical boxes, and highway infrastructure” which “nobody cares about … untilsomebody tags them,” as Max Harrison-Caldwell put in The San Francisco Standard — keeping these blank simply enforces an aesthetic on a city. An aesthetic that the average person has no say in designing, and which a person who owns no property will be unable to alter — that is, without breaking the law.
In 2023, preparing to host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, San Francisco scrubbed graffiti, increased arrests and displaced its unhoused population. Residents reacted in graffiti and protest, criticizing the environmental impacts of capitalism, member-countries’ complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the sudden availability of money to impress world leaders despite the long-term neglect of vulnerable residents. Graffiti — such as “PEOPLE OVER PROFIT” and “FREE PALESTINE” — displayed the misalignment between the priorities of the conference and of city residents, through both its method and its message.
While not all graffiti has such overt and direct political messaging, all graffiti implicitly asserts people’s right to have their voices heard in public spaces. When aesthetics of sterile cleanliness serve to make cities digestible to wealthy outside observers, graffiti shows that those who live there won’t be so easily swallowed.
Thus, graffiti can carry local sentiments, and sentiments which are unable or unlikely to be platformed in state-sanctioned methods.
To return to earlier discussion of crime and investment, it’s important to note that, in addition to violent crime being correlated with a lack of investment in communities, living in a community which lacks investment — or, to use a more direct term, is poor — is often criminalized itself.
As Pemex, a retired Oakland graffiti artist, put it for The San Francisco Standard, “This was something for hood kids in the ghetto that had no money for art school.” By criminalizing graffiti, cities ensure that in order to have their voices heard and reflect themselves in their environments — residents must either be wealthy or criminals.
On an individual level, we should notice and celebrate graffiti — from tags, to scribbles on bathroom stalls, to expansive and elaborate murals. Additionally, cities around the bay area should decriminalize graffiti, encouraging both artistic expression and free speech.
Meanwhile, cities should narrow the circumstances in which graffiti is illegal. In 2014, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, legalized graffiti on nonhistoric city property, and graffiti has long been a point of civic pride. Melbourne, Australia has numerous council-approved lanes for street art, and these generate an estimated $4.5 million in tourism each year. By legalizing graffiti, cities could see these same benefits, encouraging local artists, benefitting neighborhoods both culturally and economically and inspiring local pride.
Though, legalization itself is a topic of contention among writers, as some fear the medium will be defanged through corporate co-opting or consider it otherwise incompatible with legal sanctioning.
This incompatibility is, unfortunately, often confirmed. Many cities, including Melbourne and Rio, draw a dubious distinction between legal street art and illegal tagging, resulting in removed tags. Writers have also criticized the practice of cities or brands performing alignment with writers by sponsoring apolitical street art, while discouraging independent creation.
If cities are to legalize graffiti in a way that honors, rather than whitewashes, the vibrant culture and writers who create it, this must be done without filtering or framing. Cities can’t pick and choose what art has merit, or crowd out graffiti’s radical methods and messages.
Additionally, I take issue with the ramifications of conditional acceptance of graffiti. The words of Pemex, speaking in the SF Standard on gentrified graffiti-inspired fine art, again come to mind: “You wanna see the animals, but you want to be safe behind the glass. And it doesn’t f—ing work like that.” Conditional acceptance treats graffiti as something to gawk at and visit, not accept. Though this is somewhat inevitable — unless it is open season on all walls — legalization of graffiti must integrate it in cities rather than section it off within.
I would advocate for cities to legalize graffiti on non-historic city property — throughout the city — as well as on designated streets, while not platforming any one method or message of graffiti over another.
Graffiti is a result of people expressing themselves artistically and engaging with their surroundings. It should be destigmatized by individuals and decriminalized by cities while remaining aware of the complexities in doing so.