Having recently returned to Missouri after 25 years in the Army, during which time I lived in seven different states, driving Missouri roads is maddening for its extreme billboard-blight.

Yet, despite this observation, the Missouri Outdoor Advertising Association attempts to defend its billboards as “Americana” and “part of Missouri’s heritage” (”Billboards Benefit Missouri Economy, Safety;” October 13, 2009).

While this is certainly a creative spin on their “product,” anyone with a real sense of proportion and a grasp of our state’s rich history knows that such claims ring hollow. Our real “heritage,” defined as something we pass down to our children, is our state’s natural beauty, from the confluence of our two mighty national rivers, to our gently rolling farmland, to the Ozarks.

Billboards detract from this heritage and ought to be limited or perhaps even banned.

Additionally, perhaps playing on the economic uncertainly people now feel, the author cites his assertion that jobs will be lost if people don’t know where to pull of a freeway to find a gas station or McDonalds.

It is, of course, intereseting to note that the four states that have totally banned billboards each have signifcinatly less unemployment than Missouri’s 9.5% (Vemont - 6.8%, Hawaii - 7.2%, Maine - 8.6%, and Alaska - 8.3%).

Grant Doty
St. Louis