Ad creep is an obivous concern for us folks at Spacing, but there are instances when some good can come from it. Take the California community of Riverside, east of Los Angeles, for example.
Penny Newman, director of the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice bought a $5,000-a-month billboard to get an important message out to her community — the area had become America’s worst place for air quality. “We are very frustrated that the county of Riverside continues to allow developers to build warehouses next to homes and homes next to warehouses when they know the damage it causes. It’s unethical and immoral not to let people know what they are moving into. Developers say they put this (health risks) in disclosure statements, but nobody ever reads them.”
When a couple of developers told Newman, “Why don’t you put up a sign?” she went out and did just that. The billboard stayed up for January and February.