ancient cities

326 Graffiti
Further Readings
Davies, J. 2002. “The Governance of Urban
Regeneration: A Critique of the ‘Governing without
Government’ Thesis.” Public Administration
80(2):301–22.
Gross, J. S. and R. Hambleton. 2007. “Global Trends,
Diversity, and Local Democracy.” Pp. 1–12 in
Governing Cities in a Global Era: Competition,
Innovation, and Democratic Reform, edited by
R. Hambleton and J. S. Gross. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Jordan, A., R. Wurzel, and A. Zito. 2005. “The Rise of
‘New’ Policy Instruments in Comparative Perspective:
Has Governance Eclipsed Government?” Political
Studies 53:477–96.
Pierre, Jon. 2005. “Comparative Urban Governance:
Uncovering Complex Causalities.” Urban Affairs
Review 40(4):446–62.
Rhodes, R. A. W. 1997. Understanding Governance.
Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.
Sørensen, E. and J. Torfing. 2005. “The Democratic
Anchorage of Governance Networks.” Scandinavian
Political Studies 28(3):195–218.
Stoker, G. and K. Mossberger. 2000. “Urban Political
Science and the Challenge of Urban Governance.”
Pp. 91–109 in Debating Governance, edited by Jon
Pierre. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Stone, Cl. N. 1989. Regime Politics: Governing
Atlanta 1946–1988. Lawrence: University Press of
Kansas.
Gr a f f i t i
Urban surfaces have always carried unauthorized
messages and images—famously, graffiti has been
found among the ruins of ancient Pompeii. These
graffiti messages and images have taken all sorts
of forms. Some are political, some are humorous
and witty, some are expressions of individual or
collective identity, some are claims of territorial
ownership, and others are elaborate forms of
artistic expression. The emergence of new graffiti
styles and techniques in recent decades has provoked
sustained debate among policymakers and
scholars. After briefly outlining these changes in
graffiti, this entry discusses different perspectives
on the nature of the so-called graffiti problem in
contemporary cities.
Historical Evolution
Graffiti is certainly not a new phenomenon, but in
the late 1960s and early 1970s, new forms of graffiti
began appearing on the streets and public
transportation systems of Philadelphia and New
York City in the United States. Young people in
these cities started writing their tag names with
ink markers and aerosol paint. Gradually, as these
graffiti writers sought to maximize the exposure
of their tag identities, both the quantity and the
quality of their productions increased. By the late
1970s, elaborate artistic productions (or “pieces”)
by writers like Dondi, Futura 2000, and others
covered whole subway cars in New York City.
These new graffiti styles gradually gained wider
exposure through books like 1984’s Subway Art
by photographers Martha Cooper and Henry
Chalfant, and through early films such as the
Public Broadcasting Service documentary Style
Wars and the film Wild Style. This media circulation
of graffiti subsequently helped facilitate its
global diffusion and proliferation. Thriving graffiti
scenes exist in hundreds of cities around the world,
with every populated continent boasting its own
hot spots and styles. These scenes and styles are by
now exhaustively documented in glossy books
published by major commercial publishing houses
and in graffiti-related magazines and websites.
Graffiti might be viewed as an example par
excellence of Michel de Certeau’s tactics—an appropriation
of space that insinuates into and against the
dominant normative values inscribed in the urban
environment. Graffiti writers see urban surfaces not
as sanctified private property but as a medium for
circulating their identities, artistic ambitions, and
messages for each other and the wider public.
An Urban “Problem”
Not surprisingly, then, the global diffusion and
proliferation of these new forms of graffiti have
typically been viewed as a problem by urban
authorities. Graffiti is frequently described as a
kind of antisocial behavior that undermines urban
quality of life. Indeed, critiques of graffiti played a
formative role in the development of current
approaches to law and order, which place emphasis
on the need to curb antisocial behavior in the name
of quality of life, such as the “broken windows”