The Costs of “Art” Outweigh the Benefits.

I consider graffiti a form of vandalism within the community. Through the City of Covina graffiti has been considered a big problem throughout. It has been brought to the attention of the city and has determined even if some see it as an art form, graffiti is considered vandalism within this city. Where it does not benefit the community as a whole where all the cons outweigh the pros in this situation, leaving those citizens within Covina to fend for themselves until it had become a higher power issue, as it would start affecting the overall community. The city I believe should plan going through legal action to prevent further dismantling of public property.

Most work has been done illegally as said in article one, ” the fact that most graffiti is placed on private property without the owner’s permission, then it might be more recognized as a legitimate form of art…”, shows how the city would lack having an issue with the public display of art if it wasn’t costing the citizens and government so much money to clean up. The city had offered solutions to the issue, but have concluded the lack of necessity for these types of displays. Alike article one, the fourth also states a similar claim, ” Artists tag both public and private property, which becomes costly for taxpayers and business and property owners,” stating how the clean up of said art is costly that could be prevented more so if made illegal. If said, “art” was to become illegal it might force others into following the leader concept alike stated in articles one and four states the negative impacts leading to lower property rates and increased crime within an area. If you consider vandalism art, like article one says they choose to, “…encourage these artists to deface public property, and so commit a crime…”, leaving the community no choice but to retaliate with legal action.

Another point after cost is the effect it has not only on tax-payers but the area around where current events are taking place. Article four, brushes upon environmental aspects and shows how “Graffiti sometimes has a wave effect, in which a heavily vandalized area will experience increases in other sorts of crimes as well showing how the area is leading negatively to the overall area. Gang-related crimes and violence are the crimes most commonly associated with graffiti,” stating the cause and effect taking place within the community can lead to severe disorder. The wave effect is a severe issue, the writer also states in article four, ” Nearby property value may decrease and crime may increase”, due to the fact of excessive graffiti can create a stigma of a bad neighborhood. With the stigma, this can cause property values to decrease while the crime rate within Covina will skyrocket.

While there are many opinions over whether graffiti can be considered art or vandalism with evidence given it is clearly a form of defacing public property. Where the graffiti can be seen as bright and colorful to some of the public, the artists had no permission to place their mark on public and private property which lead to a domino effect of events that lead to a negative impact on Covina. Whether the impacts being an eyesore to the community, or decreasing property value, or raising the overall crime rate within an area the idea that graffiti can be seen as art is the only positive effect on the community. Through legal action I believe this should be stopped within Covina and limiting the negative vandalism has caused within this community.

“Train-graffiti” by vitalyzator is licensed under CC BY 2.0