ou†lier

"What is a city for? And to whom does it belong? If you believe that a city belongs to its people, as a place for them to live, work, eat, sleep, sing, love, argue, and ultimately die, then there’s no particular problem with graffiti. It simply expresses all of those things, which make up life itself. But if you believe that a city belongs to its property owners, then graffiti is very bad indeed. After all, it’s not that politicians and members of the economic elite object to the act of writing on walls as such. They write on walls all the time, and on a much larger scale than anyone else; they just call it 'advertising.' The giant gold letters spelling out T R U M P on a skyscraper are this kind of elite graffiti, the biggest 'tag' of all. But the elite believe that only those with money should be allowed to write their thoughts on the city’s surface. They take it as an article of faith that the right to do so must be bought and paid for, as they believe all things must — and in turn, that those who can’t pay have no right to leave a trace of their existence.