Taking Back the Streets? How Street Art Ordinances Constitute Government Takings

61 Pages Posted: 2 Jun 2020 Last revised: 13 May 2024

See all articles by Sheldon Evans

Sheldon Evans

Washington University in St. Louis - School of Law

Date Written: 2015

Abstract

As street art continues to fuel a generation of counterculture and gains popularity in pop culture, laws enacted by local governments to curb this art form raise interesting constitutional issues surrounding the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause. More and more cities across America are classifying street art and graffiti as public nuisances. Such municipalities impose their agenda on private property owners with street art ordinances. These laws allow the government to come onto private property to remove the street art; some laws go even further by requiring the property owner to remove the street art at his own cost. This Article attempts to make sense of the Takings Clause's tumultuous doctrines and their underlying principles in order to analyze this anti-street art campaign. In the process, this Article analyzes whether street art ordinances constitute takings under the Fifth Amendment due to their potential negative economic impact on property values and the temporary deprivation of essential property rights.

Keywords: Street Art, Property, Eminent Domain, Government Takings, Takings Clause, Graffiti, Just Compensation

Suggested Citation

Evans, Sheldon, Taking Back the Streets? How Street Art Ordinances Constitute Government Takings (2015). 25 Fordham Intellectual Property, Media & Entertainment Law Journal 685 (2015), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3218000

Sheldon Evans (Contact Author)

Washington University in St. Louis - School of Law ( email )

Campus Box 1120
St. Louis, MO 63130
United States

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