This billboard, across the street from where I work, is what inspired Kansas City to adopt new laws governing the size and location of billboards. It's what's known as a 'highway sign,' meaning it's of sufficient magnitude to be easily read from a hundred yards off by inattentive drivers going 80mph on an interstate.
Personally, I don't mind the billboards of Waldo on the whole: they are one of the elements that give the neighborhood a certain funky feel I like. It's not like the main drags of so many suburbs where you really can't tell where you are. I remember a stretch like that in Tulsa that must surely extend outside the borders of Oklahoma as long as it seemed, but every three blocks was the same thing. Like those rolling sceneries they used in old movies to run behind the stationary car with the two actors sharing dialogue.
Is it ugly? Well, sure, it can be. I guess when it comes to neighborhoods, I have an an appreciation for the fat friend who has a stellar personality.
Anyway, the NIMBY element aside, this hulking monstrosity has been unrented for over a year. The new law (which doesn't apply, the existing eyesore is grandfathered in), would require the owner of a billboard that's gone a year without a paid-for message to tear the thing down. I've heard more than one person wish the thing would fall on the psychic used car shack.
And in fairness, all those libertarian arguments I'd make about the market determining what's too ugly, the fact that one of the busiest non-interstate roads in the city, with 26,000 cars a day passing by, is not enough of a draw to sell this billboard for a year on end: the market seems to agree with the homeowners association types.
So now it's got a fresh ad, advertising Branson. The horror, I blotted out the URL they hint hat because really, friends don't let friends do Branson.
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