The City That Chose Beauty Over Billboards

“There used to be a massive block of concrete here, there was an advertising column, it wasn’t so beautiful,” says Gilles Namur, waving his hand along the length of Cours Lafontaine, a street that runs through the historic center of Grenoble.

Today, it’s a different sight altogether. The street has been redesigned to incorporate a spacious bike path. A long row of trees has been planted along one side, matching the row on the opposite sidewalk. And the advertising has been removed.

Adding a glimpse of the impressive mountains in the distance, once described by Grenoble’s most famous writer Stendhal, it makes for a pretty, pleasing view. To say it’s a far cry from Times Square would be an understatement.

A counter on Cours Lafontaine shows the number of cyclists who have passed it. Credit: Peter Yeung

“Our lives are now full of ads, consumerist imagery that have negative impacts on society, the way we live,” adds Namur, who is Grenoble’s deputy mayor for quality of life, biodiversity and mobility. “We want to try and reduce that as much as possible.”

Here, at the foot of the French Alps, a war is being waged against “visual pollution.”

While other forms of pollution are perhaps better known, visual pollution, in Grenoble’s case, largely meaning advertising content but also ugly physical structures, can have serious negative social impacts, such as fueling consumerism and overconsumption, harming mental health and spreading sexist imagery. In an age of information overload, authorities in the French city are pioneering efforts to limit the reach of that imagery in the public realm, in turn inspiring others to take back control of what we are exposed to in our day-to-day lives.

Grenoble’s visual cleanup began over a decade ago.

In November 2014, then-incoming mayor, Éric Piolle, announced that he would not renew the soon-expiring contract of JCDecaux, a multinational company that at the time managed hundreds of billboards across the French city.

The next year, when the contract came to an end, city authorities dismantled 326 advertising devices, including columns, large panels and so-called “lollipops”, that spanned more than 2,000 square meters of surface. Many were replaced by trees. In doing so, Grenoble became the first city in Europe to ban billboards in public spaces.

“Alcohol, cars, junk food, women depicted as sexual objects,” adds Namur. “We don’t want it.”

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Campaigners argue that there are several reasons to clamp down on advertising in public spaces: to fight against sexist and consumerist imagery, to support local businesses that don’t have the budgets to compete, to reduce carbon emissions (especially due to nighttime lighting) and to protect the beauty of the outdoors.

A review of 52 scientific studies into visual pollution carried out between 2008 and 2023 concluded that it can lower concentration and cause negative psychological responses, such as anxiety, fear, insecurity and lethargy. “Visual pollution has emerged as a significant environmental issue due to rapid and uncontrolled urban expansion, leading to a variety of social and aesthetic challenges,” the authors wrote.

And it is a growing concern amid rapid global urbanization and scant regulation.

Gilles Namur is Grenoble’s deputy mayor for quality of life, biodiversity and mobility. Credit: Peter Yeung

According to some estimates, we were exposed to about 500 ads per day in the 1970s. Now it’s said to be up to 5,000. While the reliability of those figures is murky, it’s clear that we are confronted with significantly more ads today than previously.

“These ads are imposed on us, we never asked for them, we don’t have a choice,” says Thomas Bourgenot, spokesperson for Resistance to Advertising Aggression, a French advocacy group.

Over the years, Bourgenot and his team have been involved in several victories against advertising in France, including the 2016 ban on advertising targeted at children on publicly funded media, the 2022 ban on advertising for fossil fuels as well as experiments in France to make spam mail in letter boxes opt-in.

But there’s a huge way to go. “Progress can be painfully slow,” says Bourgenot.

Even so, Grenoble has shown success after a decade of work. Besides its ban in public spaces, which more or less amounted to the simple political decision to not renew billboard contracts, the city could not ignore the fact that advertising was still prevalent on private land.

So, it expanded its efforts over the following years.

In 2020, city hall worked with the Grenoble Alpes Metropolitan Authority, which includes 49 municipalities in the region, to tighten restrictions through the Intermunicipal Local Advertising Regulations, banning advertising near schools, on rooftops and in heritage areas, as well as limiting the size of billboards, among other stipulations.

Thanks to this, a further 117 billboards were removed from the streets of Grenoble.

Today, the result is that advertising is prohibited in all public spaces and in 90 percent of the rest of the city. The only remaining advertising panels are those on public transit shelters managed by SMMAG, the Joint Mobility Authority of the Grenoble Metropolitan Area, which makes decisions independent of city hall.

Through this transformation, which has seen hundreds of billboards disappear from its streets, Grenoble has simultaneously seized the opportunity to make the urban environment more livable, climate-resistant and bike-friendly.

Back on Cours Lafontaine, the city installed a counter showing the number of cyclists who have passed it: more than 2,000 today, and more than 600,000 so far this year. Here, in other words, are visuals that give positive, not consumerist, messages.

At another spot, a few minutes away, a black walnut tree was planted in the space once occupied by a billboard. Several years old, it already is providing ample shade on the sidewalk. More than 50 such trees have been planted across the city. The only signage now allowed in public spaces is for nonprofits and cultural activities.

Sitting on a bench nearby, Gabrielle Reynaud, a 25-year-old school teacher, said that the lack of advertising had become second nature to her. “You don’t realize until you leave and go somewhere like Paris and it’s a big shock to the senses,” she said. “We’re used to a more tranquil life here.”

In fact, political support for the billboard ban seems to be widespread. Even after two election cycles since the policy was introduced, there has never been an effort to reintroduce the billboards. “It’s a non-subject,” says Namur.

Along with banning billboards, Grenoble has seized the opportunity to make the urban environment more livable, climate-resistant and bike-friendly. Credit: Peter Yeung

Other cities in France have since followed Grenoble’s anti-ad crackdown. Lyon has banned digital advertising panels from public spaces, including the metro. Montpellier has introduced regulations stipulating that advertising must now be located 150 meters away from schools, compared to 50 meters previously, overall reducing the number of billboards by a third. Even Paris has set out to significantly cut the outdoor advertising permitted in its streets.

Grenoble, meanwhile, says that it’s been contacted by countless authorities from around the continent looking to learn from its example, from Geneva to Denmark.

“It’s a very positive and encouraging initiative, it’s an example that others can learn from,” says Raheel Nawaz, a professor at the University of Staffordshire in the U.K. and co-author of the book Visual Pollution: Concepts, Practices and Management Framework.

And there have been plenty of other international experimentations and variations. In 2019, London banned posters for junk food across its public transport network in an attempt to curb child obesity. In 2007, Sao Paulo removed 15,000 billboards and 300,000 storefront signs in a single year, even though some advertising has been reintroduced since. In 2009, the Indian city of Chennai also banned billboard advertising. Several U.S. states, including Vermont and Maine, have been free of billboards since the 1970s. More recently, in May, Amsterdam became the world’s first capital city to ban public advertisements for both meat and fossil fuel products.

Yet Nawaz emphasizes the fact that visual pollution is experienced differently in different countries and contexts: In Global Majority countries, like his native Pakistan, it extends far beyond billboard advertising, he argues.

“When I first went to Florence, they told me visual pollution is bad architecture, ugly buildings,” he says. “In other places, it’s open sewage systems, year-round flooding. You step outside your house and it’s all muddy. It’s a real physical hazard to you.”

Another reality from the war against visual pollution is that there will likely be some lost income from advertising.

Former Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo in 2020 expressed a desire to ban ads, but balked at the potential loss of €40 million in revenue from the city’s budget. The capital, however, has banned digital billboards from its streets.

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Yet Namur says that the loss, particularly with the growth of online advertising, is becoming less significant. He says that in 2013 Grenoble was receiving €600,000 in ad revenue, but that during renewal negotiations it was offered €150,000. “These ads are made for car drivers, not for pedestrians, and with fewer cars here, it’s less interesting to advertisers anyway,” adds Namur.

Bourgenot also argues that authorities should account for the negative social costs of junk food and alcohol advertising, which create costs for national health systems.

In the meantime, Grenoble is setting out its next objectives. Under Mayor Laurence Ruffin, who was elected earlier this year after Piolle reached his term limit, the city hopes to target storefront signage, particularly due to its nighttime energy use.

“It will not be straightforward,” says Namur. “But we have to do everything we can.”

The post The City That Chose Beauty Over Billboards appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.