Visual Pollution and Its Impact on the Built Environment: Resilient City

Public space can be understood as where public life develops and where inhabitants can freely express themselves and exercise their citizenship rights. The public space is a visual synthesis comprising elements located in buildings and spaces, both public and private. However, the advertising industry has found ways to privatize the exploitation of the public space. Although there are regulations that make possible the organization of the urban image and regulate the commercialization of these spaces, in some cases, the number of advertising elements (billboards) in the built environment prevents people from appreciating less and less the natural environment, which permanently competes with advertisements for commercial products, political propaganda or services. In the field of the right to the city, it is pertinent to discuss the right to an obstacle-free landscape. Therefore, this paper seeks to understand how outdoor advertising interferes with the inhabitant's visual experience of urban space and how this influences their perception of the city and its image. It presents a reflection on how outdoor advertising affects the degradation of public space.