Readers React: Maine and Vermont show L.A. what life is like without billboards

To the editor: I recently returned from a trip to New England, where I discovered that Maine and Vermont each outlawed billboards more than 30 years ago. The absence of visual blight significantly enhances the natural beauty of these gorgeous states. (“L.A. city commission opposes ‘amnesty’ for billboards with permit problems,” Oct. 22)

I don’t expect California, and certainly not the lobbyist-infested city of Los Angeles, to follow suit. But it’s worth knowing and remembering that life without billboards is not only possible but pleasurable. Any progress we can make in this direction is a worthwhile step.

Ronald P. Wolff, Claremont

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To the editor: The article on the City Planning Commission’s proposed rules for regulating billboards in L.A. brought to mind Ogden Nash’s parody of Joyce Kilmer’s iconic poem “Trees.” Nash wrote:

I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless, the billboards fall
I’ll never see a tree at all.

Valerie Fields, Los Angeles

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