New Orleans, Louisiana.  The Grand Movie Theater has sat vacant for 10 years and its expansive walls have proved an irresistible and frequent target of graffiti attack.  

Then Muralist Brandan Odums and other local artists decided to change the blight and negativity into a symbol of peace with an extensive mural.  Odums has successfully created graffiti-styled murals on several other vacant buildings in New Orleans.

After four days of priming to cover the graffiti tags and prep the wall for the mural, the thanks from the local graffiti taggers was a fresh round of graffiti tags.

Two steps forward, one step back.

The hope is to have the Peace Wall completed in time for the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

In Ogden, Utah, a partnership between the city and local art college is converting a blighted underpass which has been a frequent target for graffiti attack into an extensive mural and public artwork. 

This effort is making the underpass "feel" safer for pedestrians and joggers and eliminates a source of blight and frustration.  The murals may not eliminate the graffiti, but should significantly decrease the frequency.  Excellent anti-graffiti coatings can be applied to help protect the mural and allow easy graffiti removal when a tagger decides to tag over the mural. 

In Port Angeles, Washington, Richard Schneider, after retiring from the National Park Service, decided to take matters into his own hands.  He has removed over 70 graffiti tags over the past few months.  He is highly motivated to improve this city and community by eliminating graffiti blight.  He attempts to remove graffiti tags as quickly as possible to discourage them from reoccurring.  By removing the tags quickly, the hope is that the taggers move on to areas less visible to the community or stop all together. 

Flagstaff, Arizona - The City of Flagstaff Arizona is fed up with graffiti tagging.  Without a city funded graffiti abatement program, the City is organizing volunteers to help remove graffiti.  A small core of dedicated volunteers is already making an impact and more volunteers are applying daily. 

"We'll try to keep this going for years by using volunteers instead of the spotty coverage we've done using dedicated groups. "We're purposely going slow. We're not trying to sign up 700 volunteers in one week. We're looking to grow responsibly, said Code Compliance Officer Tom Boughner

More at AZDailySun.com