Cities and parks often work to prevent graffiti

As graffiti grew more popular, New York worked to stop it

In 1972, the NYPD made over 1,500 graffiti-related arrests. By 1973, the city was annually spending $10M to remove and limit graffiti. That same year, a poll conducted by an anti-graffiti task force found that the "vast majority" of residents did not consider graffiti to be art.

The theory behind public art

Proponents of public art, including graffiti, argue that its free access and visibility breaks down the elitism and financial barriers of galleries and museums, allowing people to interact or ignore the work as they see fit.

Graffiti exists in a legal gray area

"Street art" has become a major seller in the art world, yet many states still consider graffiti to be illegal vandalism. Copyright law complicates the situation further, offering protections for "original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression," even if they've been created illegally.

In the '70s, graffiti moved to subway cars

Unlike static walls, the silver cars moved throughout the city, like a canvas in perpetual motion. That made them highly desired by graffiti artists, especially because tagging them was considerably more difficult and, in turn, more impressive than a simple tag in an alley.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

Graffiti's lexicon includes slang for methods and aspirations

Quickly covering an area with graffiti, often fast tags and throwies, is called "bombing," a word that's intended to evoke images of an aerial raid. "Heaven" is a double entendre: It's a very high spot, both desirable and potentially fatal.

A graffiti artist breaks down the fundamentals of the form

Graffiti is more than just tagging a name. Legendary street artist Carlos Mare, also known as Mare 139, breaks down how to paint several of the form's popular styles and motifs, from quickly drawn throwies to intricately planned masterpieces.

A collection of ancient graffiti from Pompeii, Herculaneum

From cavemen to marker-wielding children, humans have always wanted to leave their mark. Read some of the graffiti left by ancient Romans here. The cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum feature exquisite levels of preservation due to the nature of their demise. Viewers can see the surviving graffiti by clicking through the site's featured collections, which include topics such as poetry and love.

5 works of art that were destroyed and repaired

Art preservation is a delicate skill; art reconstruction is even more challenging, especially when the damaged works are centuries old. This Artnet guide details five of the most famous cases of dismembered works (from Manet, Cézanne, and more) that were repaired by specialists, allowing audiences to see the pieces in the way they were intended.

How parking infrastructure reveals a region's values

As cars became more popular, the need for city parking increased. In Europe, well-established cities with limited space generally opted for more expensive underground parking beneath public spaces to preserve aesthetics. Available land and decentralized planning in the US saw more parking lots and garages built. These decisions reveal broader policy realities for these regions.

Why some US cities pay thousands of dollars for a single public trash can

The rationale supposes high-end, heavy-duty trash cans reduce litter and maintenance costs, justifying per-unit costs of close to $3,000 in some municipalities. But results are mixed, and some experiments using cheap 55-gallon drums were similarly effective.

View the steps you can take to stop invasive species

Individuals who are outside should make sure to wash any outdoor gear and equipment with appropriate tools to limit the spread of seeds and other microorganism-carrying debris across locations. Pets, horses, and other animals should be similarly brushed, and firewood should be burned where it is purchased.

Burning Man's artists and architects create without seeking profit or fame

Each year Burning Man's Black Rock City sees major achievements in design. Many creators remain anonymous and do not seek fame, profit, or acclaim, valuing the process of creating, and seeking to cultivate culture and identity.

The creation of the parks often involved displacing Native tribes

Early parks like Yellowstone, Glacier, and Yosemite involved the removal of tribal communities like the Shoshone, Crow, and Nez Percé, undermining the popular narrative that parks preserved an uninhabited wilderness.

Paris and Boston were redesigned partly to combat cholera's spread

Georges-Eugène "Baron" Haussmann, who oversaw Paris's redesign in the 1800s, replaced many of the city's narrow streets with wide boulevards. This was done at least in part to bring more air and light into the city to help control cholera. Architect Arthur Gilman redeveloped Boston's Back Bay to similarly combat cholera, among other reasons.

A guide to brutalism, architecture's most polarizing style

Brutalism is an architectural style that emphasizes raw materials, bold lines, and limited ornamentation. Although it was most popular in the middle of the 20th century, its fans can still be found across the globe, championing the misunderstood buildings in the world's major cities. This article from Dwell defines the style and unpacks why people feel so passionately about this design style.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

How house colors can indicate gentrification

Reporters from the Washington Post share an analysis that indicates gray and neutrally toned houses are signs of gentrification in a neighborhood. Visuals of different paint swatches help illustrate which colors are chosen for newly built homes in certain DC districts.

See L'Enfant's original plan and vision for DC and the National Mall

In the 1790s, L'Enfant designed a capital defined by broad avenues, public squares, and long sight lines between major civic buildings. Much of his vision for the Mall was disrupted for decades and was finally realized through later 19th- and early-20th-century redesigns.

In Amsterdam, planting organic flowers has increased native bee diversity by 45%

The citywide effort is an example of rethinking conventional agricultural methods, which rely on monocropping and heavy chemical use. Cover crops—plants grown to suppress weeds, prevent erosion, and attract pollinators rather than to be harvested—have also shown environmental benefits, despite not being sold for profit.

How Monet’s paintings changed the way we see London

Between 1899 and 1901, legendary French Impressionist painter Claude Monet produced over 100 paintings of London consistently shrouded in fog. Art historians claim this series left a permanent mark on how we perceive the capital city, inevitably layered in obscuring and dramatic mist. See some of the paintings and read more here.

Smart cities like Songdo, South Korea, have created isolating environments

Built as a futuristic, eco-friendly city filled with smart features like pneumatic trash systems and app-controlled homes, the town provides limited opportunities for face-to-face interactions amid sterile backdrops. A focus on high-rise housing amplifies the lonely, disconnected atmosphere.

View a gallery of whimsical transmission tower designs from around the world

Despite their importance to the functioning of the electric grid, these structures are often considered aesthetically unpleasant. To remedy this, some have been transformed into art installations featuring stained glass and colorful lighting, or built with whimsical designs, such as clown faces or giant bodies.

Things to avoid doing in Barcelona

Everyone gets told about the places they should visit, the food they should try, and the activities they should do. But what about the things one shouldn’t do? Here’s that list. The authors are journalists and tour guides in Barcelona, so you can suspect they know what they’re talking about when they say “Don’t treat tapas like fast food.”

Scientists have proposed using lasers to push space trash into Earth's atmosphere

Such projects would allow most debris to burn up and no longer pose a risk to active satellites, telescopes, and astronauts on space stations. Enacting these plans would require substantial investments from private and governmental space agencies and overcoming international laws that prevent the removal of another country's space equipment.

Explore a timeline of Brownfields and land revitalization programs

Brownfields are properties where redevelopment is complicated by contamination from past industrial or commercial use. The EPA's Brownfields Program funds cleanup and reuse of these sites, transforming abandoned lots into housing, parks, and businesses while boosting local economies.

How Disney World keeps out mosquitos

Disney World may have been built on a swamp, but it's nearly free from the annoyance of mosquitos. That hasn't been an easy task; Disney has worked with engineers and pest specialists on minimizing the invasive bugs through a variety of different methods. This Reader's Digest article breaks down how they've successfully kept the park free from these unwanted guests.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

See these 16 pieces of art evoking phobias of snakes, flying, spiders, and more. 

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

The use of fungi to detoxify land and water—a process known as mycoremediation—has been used to clean up natural resources affected by the 2025 California wildfires.

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

Poison ivy was sent to Europe in the 1600s as an exotic, ornamental oddity, where it was purposefully grown in the English royal gardens at Kew, the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, and a few other locations.

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

Tattoos remain visible on your skin thanks to immune cells called macrophages

All rainbows are 'raincircles' caused by water droplets separating white sunlight into a spectrum of colors, but Earth's surface blocks the bottom half of the circle from our line of sight.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

See this overview of the firework rules across all 50 states, ranging from a complete ban on non-professional fireworks in Massachusetts to states with more lax rules like Indiana.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

To reduce wrinkles in clothing, research recommends gentle wash cycles with more water and tumble drying with smaller loads and longer times.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

Cultural norms about how to handle the bodies of loved ones in communities in West Africa have hampered Ebola responses.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

Venture capital is a form of funding provided to early-stage companies with high growth potential, typically in exchange for an equity (or ownership) stake