>or move to a country that has no graffiti like Singapore. One of the most sterile, boring city in the world.
People who pretend to make art on walls are absolute minority compared to those who'd prefer to keep walls clean, or painted, or whatever (there are plenty of options between gray, and wannabe artists spraying smileys). But somehow you offer the majority to leave. I don't think that's how it can work really
I don't offer the majority to leave. Like it or not, currently in most European countries, the law and application of laws is done so as to either encourage or at least not discourage graffitis. A lot of cities even give space to graffiti artists to paint and try to entice them.
If the actual majority wanted to get rid of this problem, then it would be stopped, I'm not the one making the laws or deciding whether to apply them.
As for grey walls, there are plenty of gray boring walls in any city in the world, usually those tend to be painted on, in my experience, not colorful walls nor brick walls nor older buildings.
Well, no offence, but you idea of how society works is not particulatly correct. Both individuals, and institutions have to prioritize thousands of issues against limited resources. Because of that majority opinions doesn't necessary become policies. Only those urgent/emotional/tribal enough to become election fuel. Apparently, graffiti cannot compete with plenty of pains citizens experience now.
>A lot of cities even give space to graffiti
Try researching where it came from, and you'll see it's an attempt to civilize behavior cities found impossible to control.
So reality is that graffitists are active, and numerous to extent it's hard to fought them off the walls so to say, and while majority doesn't like it, it's not ready to re-allocate resources from other issues. This leads to equilibrium we are in at the time.
>plenty of gray boring
It makes a good excuse in the internet discussion, but it doesn't correspond to street reality. I'm in a nice medieval quarter now, and see lots of graffity across buildings which neither gray, nor boring. It is as if people who do that don't care about beauty, other humans, and all those good things usually claimed to legitimize the phenomenon
> I'm in a nice medieval quarter now, and see lots of graffity across buildings which neither gray, nor boring
Ok, point to you there, that would infuriate me. To be fair, I haven't traveled back to Europe since Covid (moved to Asia 20ish years ago) and I don't know if the situation has deteriorated. I didn't experience graffitis as much in places that are actually nice but I've liked them in places that are gray and drab and I remember enjoying them in Berlin and in Bruxels.
I live in Hong Kong and here quite a few people express disagreement over the government removing the works of invader and other graffiti artist (the "King of Kowloon") but to be fair, graffitis are really limited to exactly the type of places where not many would complain.
> Well, no offence, but you idea of how society works is not particulatly correct. Both individuals, and institutions have to prioritize thousands of issues against limited resources. Because of that majority opinions doesn't necessary become policies. Only those urgent/emotional/tribal enough to become election fuel. Apparently, graffiti cannot compete with plenty of pains citizens experience now.
I think it's not only limited resources, it's a political wish to be lenient against petty crime, there are plenty of countries with the same resource in term of police that are much stricter against petty crime with much more success. There's more policemen per capita in European countries like Germany, France, Spain than in Singapore, Malaysia or Japan (I was surprised looking at Wikipedia that Hong Kong as more but that makes sense given the response to the protests before COVID) [1]. They could absolutely enforce fines but they don't. Whenever I traveled back to Europe, I've not been as bothered by graffitis nearly as much as I was bothered by dog feces and littering which is absolutely everywhere and never fined.
People who pretend to make art on walls are absolute minority compared to those who'd prefer to keep walls clean, or painted, or whatever (there are plenty of options between gray, and wannabe artists spraying smileys). But somehow you offer the majority to leave. I don't think that's how it can work really