Cleaner Look for Amman

According to this past week's Jordan Times…

The Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) started enforcing the first phase of its new regulations on billboards and signage to remove the clutter of advertisements covering building facades.

According to Ali Hadedi, director of the GAM advertising department, "The goal of the new regulations is to give Amman a cleaner look by removing the hundreds of signs all over buildings. Owners have until March to comply [with the new regulations] or we will have to remove the signs at their expense."

The new policy, which regulates the size, quantity and location of billboards, complements a preexisting city bylaw established in 1966 concerning signage.

Critics argue that the new regulations are focusing only on aesthetics and are not taking into account the needs of small business that rely solely on billboards and signage to attract customers. Raed Qaqeesh, and MP with a PhD in urban design, said that while he agrees with the new regulations, he believes they don't take into account the needs of small businesses and aren’t comprehensive. “There is an idea that Amman is a visually-polluted city,” said Qaqeesh. "But I'm worried about small businesses... we need to apply a whole vision to this city."

Many residents, however, argue that the city needs a face lift no matter what the cost, and it has been a long time coming.

The GAM is also developing a new address system for Amman whereby every building will be numbered so citizens can find buildings more easily. According to Hadedi, "With the [new] system, we won't need the signs on the buildings."

I’m telling you, the government is either reading our thoughts or reading our words.

Source: The Jordan Times, Jan. 26-27, 2007