Tagging is not graffiti much less art Charles - it's pee.

i was in Rome last month

There is far less graffiti than in Seattle

This article is rubbish

3: I was there last year, and I agree, but hey, anything to slam capitalism, I guess.

I kinda wish someone would start painting MAGA or portraits of Trump along the freeway; then I think we’d hear a different tune. But it would still be the failure of capitalism for not getting it cleaned up fast enough.

spqr blah blah you never have anything insightful to say dude

Taggers are not artists - please don’t lump them in with actual artists.

I also love a lot of the street art shared via the Vimeo - if that’s what was being created I doubt folks would be calling for its removal (see many places near the rail lines just off marginal for some truly great art). But what I see from the taggers is nothing creative / often destruction of other public art (see public art works along Aurora north of greenlake).

But yeah Chuck, blame capitalism.

"The vision reached parts of my soul that were unknown to me."
This is so poignant and explains the phenomena that happened to me in Fremont cut canal where a lot of graffiti and tagging is, and I saw a tag that said, "give up. Fairfax made me homeless." I had heard Fairfax was a psychiatric hospital with bad care and they shuffle people in and out, in and out, and these words connected me to that place.

I'm assuming that Charles Mudede will be happy then if someone comes to his home and spray paints their initials on his home and car?

I so agree w author. Love the way graffiti complements ancient baroque modern environments of Rome. Beautiful vid. Especially liked critique of petty bourgeois in USA and its stultification of US aesthetic.

Boomers think they own or control everything they can see. Their sense of entitlement is matched/was created by the generosity and abundance they grew up with. The Me generation is living up to its billing. They are more afraid of some street art interfering with their wealth accumulation through property values than understanding that cities are for people, not someone's investment portfolio. They would sell out their own family for the smaller return…in many cases, like their own children and grandchildren, they already have.

The majority of graffiti I’ve seen while visiting Europe is much more art/talent based. Most of the graffiti in Seattle/I-5 is trash.

Thank you Charles, for Compensatory Displacement. It explains a lot.

Yes Rome is a Real City, a World City, also a City that is universally known as being dirty and unkept. There is trash and pigeon shit everywhere. If it weren't for the Holy See it's be on par with Napoli, which Mudede would not be writing about.