Generally I enjoy it, but there’s a lot of situations where I wish there was some sort of middleground between 
and 
Traincabs with windows covered make people feel so much more unsafe, since outside onlookers can’t see if something is happening inside.
I get sad when I see historical buildings with a bunch of tags on them. You might think that’s silly - I would imagine some do, since I’m personally cool with newer “uglier” buldings getting tagged. So if you feel like that about all buildings and can’t relate, try to take it to extreme examples: The pyramids with tags on them, terra-cotta soldiers with tags on them, cave paintings, nature reserves, animals… All of these have been tagged. If you find those apprehensive, then start from there and go as close to “pretty and old building” as you can get until you find it acceptable again. Hopefully you get where I’m coming from then.
I know graffiti and tagging is ancient - there’s 1000-year old tags in pompei (and on pyramids) but I think that’s a reductive argument. Our notion of history, culture, preservation and so on has changed a lot since the time of widespread slavery. Had the roman empire existed today, then I’d also be mad about a legionairy tagging the walls of Versailles.
On the other hand Brechts old theatre in Berlin, which used to be some big old royal theatre, has massive red X’s painted over the coat of arms that decorate the stage, and that’s cool as fuck. So it’s not something that can easily be categorized one way or the other.
But otherwise I love it. I love seeing the signs of an underground anti-authority art movement in the world around me. I love seeing the art. I love seeing how it develops. I love seeing advertisements covered. I love it when it’s pretty, I love it when it’s juvenile, I love it when it’s insightful, I love it when it’s political and I love it when it’s crude.
I wish there was some solution. I’d love to hear other peoples thoughts.
Well I agree about the pyramids and stuff, and I think part of the solution is to have the cool and beautiful old buildings owned by the people and controlled by the people who live and work there. Same for neighborhoods and all urban spaces. Then they can decide on a case by case basis what works for them, how they want to make their area beautiful, what kind of art they want to allow and how to go about it and if and how to enforce their vision. And if and how tags fit in that vision.
Where I live, I like to see even simple, sloppy tags. I see it as people trying to own the spaces that should be theirs anyway. Sometimes they could be more colorful and I appreciate, when big beautiful graffiti don’t immediately get covered by quick tags all over. Also I like how illegal tags sometimes seem to force owners and city officials to pay artists to make beautiful art on their walls, because these tend to be left alone longer by taggers.
“Locals” as an undifferentiated group won’t do what you think. Plenty of historically significant buildings were disassembled for building materials.
And in a counter case the “Free city” of Christiania has been turned into an aggressively commercialised theme park version of itself by the original population who went from counter cultural squatters who set up grafitti covered half pipes to people who get mad about taxes and property values.
Those are good points
But it doesn’t get them any closer to that, does it? They might as well hula hoop in front of an ICE building or