Ever since the emergence of contemporary graffiti and street art, the surfaces where it has been applied and the methods by which it has been disseminated have evolved.
In New York City, for example, graffiti writers began by tagging and bombing walls in their neighborhoods but eventually expanded to similar surfaces in different parts of the city.
Soon thereafter, writers started “getting up” in subway stations, tunnels, and cars. When graffiti was placed on the outside of trains, it enabled writers to go “all city.”
This activity, along with the places where graffiti appeared, morphed into freight and passenger trains, which helped disseminate the writers’ work across regions, the country, and in some cases, internationally.
Along the way, other mobile surfaces like box vans and delivery trucks were increasingly hit.
The shift from static walls to means of transportation introduced a crucial idea: mobility could serve as a medium, expanding both the audience and reach of graffiti and street art.
Now, in the contemporary city, dockless bikes and scooters are increasingly becoming sites for graffiti and street art.
Stickers and tags placed on these mobile platforms extend the same logic that animated early train graffiti: visibility through circulation.
This evolving relationship between graffiti/street art and urban mobility reveals how writers and artists continually adapt to changes in society to keep their work in motion and in public view.
That being said, it’s important to acknowledge that not only do surfaces present opportunities, but they also present constraints. In the case of bikes and scooters, the size is small, and because of the construction, certain types of graffiti and street art are better suited. Thus, in many cases, stickers may be the easiest to apply.
So what?
This development matters primarily for its cultural significance, technological relevance, and political communication.
First, mobile graffiti/street artchallenges the static, property-based logic of the city. It asserts presence where the writer/artist might otherwise be excluded.
Second, by targeting new mobility systems (e.g., bikes and scooters), graffiti and street art are increasingly part of the digital economy and the so-called “smart city.” It turns corporate tools of efficiency into carriers of unregulated expression.
Third, this mobility transforms both authorship and audience. Finally, by using shared mobility platforms as canvases, artists reclaim space in a city increasingly privatized by technology companies. It is a subtle, yet potent, form of resistance.
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_9431-1.jpg384774Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2025-10-05 16:52:042025-10-05 16:56:23Graffiti, Street Art & Dockless Mobility
The drive to the Johnston farm, one of my father’s clients, always felt long, but the visits were mostly fun and always an adventure. The place had the basics: a farmhouse, a barn, a silo, cows, pigs, and at least one dog. When my father consulted with Mr. Johnston and my mother, if she came along, chatted with Mrs. Johnston, my older brother, sister, and I would play in the barn, sometimes with the Johnston boy.
The barn was the best part. To my ten-year-old eyes, it was enormous. On each side of the main floor were haystacks and baled hay. We spent what seemed like hours playing tag in the maze-like tunnels built into the haystacks or swinging from a rope tied to the rafters and letting go into piles of hay. Below the floor were stalls with pigs and cows; they were ridiculously loud and aggressive.
But on one visit, my brother and sister weren’t there. While my parents talked inside the house, the Johnston boy, barely a teenager, asked me if I wanted to join him outside to survey the property. Just before we stepped out, he picked up a rifle, and I thought nothing of it.
After a short walk, we came to a clearing and spotted a small dog sitting upright in the distance. The boy said it had been there for a few days and hadn’t moved. He added that the dog was not theirs and was trespassing. He also said that the animal must probably be lame. His words tumbled out quickly, as if rehearsed.
Then, without pause, he leveled the rifle to his shoulder. The Johnston boy looked down the barrel and aimed. A crack split the air. The dog toppled. Silence. He turned, as if nothing had happened. We left the body where it lay.
It was the first time I had seen a defenseless animal killed so casually. Alone and unsettled, I said nothing, out of shock, maybe fear. Perhaps he wanted to impress me. Maybe it was something darker. I never told my parents, but the brazen suddenness of that act has been an enduring memory for me.
Author’s Note: “Johnston” is a pseudonym
Photo Credit:
Photographer: Stan Shebs
Title: Farm in the Kitchener area of Ontario
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/Ontario_farm.jpg9331400Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2025-09-28 11:50:492025-09-28 11:50:49The Clearing
In most urban settings, a sense of belonging is an important foundation for political participation. Political participation (also referred to as political engagement/mobilization) includes actions that are designed to express, claim, maintain, or expand individual and community justice, legitimacy, or power. And by belonging, I’m not simply talking about attachment, social connection, or loyalty, but about a deep feeling in which place and space are integral to personal identity and meaning.
These distinctions matter. While connection to a place can be instrumental, and loyalty may be strategic, belonging implies an affective and positive bond. Such attachment often affects/motivates a person’s desire and capacity to perceive and articulate grievances when a block, neighborhood, district, or city is threatened.
Admittedly, the causal relationship between belonging and political mobilization is not straightforward. In some cases, political engagement emerges from experiences of exclusion or displacement, where the absence of belonging generates claims to recognition and rights. Furthermore, belonging also operates unevenly across spatial areas. For example, what it means to belong to a block differs from what it means to be attached to a city, and how people respond in the political sphere may vary based on the attachment they feel for each different geographic entity.
These dynamics are also shaped in part by the quality and duration of social interactions. Sustained and positive encounters with neighbors, local workers, businesses, or community organizations tend to reinforce belonging, while recurrently negative or conflictual interactions (including criminal victimization) may erode it. Thus, belonging is not fixed but continually produced and contested in everyday urban life.
Expressions of belonging take multiple forms. Material practices such as home-making, memorialization, or the use of streets and public spaces can demonstrate attachment to place. Informal street-level symbolic markers often connected with street culture (e.g., graffiti, street art, etc.) may signal identification in visible ways. Institutional practices, such as branded signage, neighborhood newsletters, or city-sponsored campaigns, attempt to inscribe belonging into the urban landscape. Belonging can even manifest in less direct actions, for example, in the maintenance of civility, norms of cleanliness (e.g., cleaning the sidewalk in front of your residence or business), or everyday restraint (i.e., treating others with respect).
Although visible signs of identity can indicate attachment, they can also be performative or commodified branding detached from durable commitment.
In DC, where I live, belonging is demonstrated in lots of different ways, including displaying the DC flag on porches, murals, bumper stickers, clothing, and tattoos. Similarly, the 202 area code is placed on local clothing brands like District of Clothing, One Love Massive, and Made in the District that sell shirts, hats, and hoodies with neighborhood names (e.g., “Brookland,” “Petworth”). We also see slogans like “Don’t Mute DC” placed on this type of clothing. The “Taxation Without Representation” license plate encapsulates a widely shared grievance and serves as a civic identifier. DC has numerous neighborhood murals, paying homage to well-known homegrown musicians like jazz great Duke Ellington in Shaw to or the grandfather of Go-go, Chuck Brown. Bands often “rep” their neighborhood during performances. The “Don’t Mute DC” movement (2019) defended neighborhood cultural expression when Central Communications, a Metro PCS store in Shaw, was told to stop playing Go-go on speakers. Block parties, cookouts, and Go-go shows often double as neighborhood identity affirmations. Events like Adams Morgan Day or the H Street Festival showcase neighborhood pride while attracting visitors. Meanwhile, graffiti and street art may contain neighborhood names, abbreviations, or slang.
Yet markers of identity do not automatically translate into political action. Wearing a shirt with the name of the neighborhood on it or displaying a city flag does not guarantee that an individual will sign a petition, attend a protest, or join a boycott. The key issue is whether attachments to place channel grievances into collective political mobilization, and what kinds of actions are residents willing to engage in. Where belonging is absent, grievances may remain diffuse, limiting the scope for individuals and communities’ claims for justice, legitimacy, or claims to power.
All being said, belonging is a start.
Photo Credit
Title New York, New York. Children escape the heat of the East Side by using fire hydrant as a shower bath (1943).
Photographer: Smith, Roger
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2025-09-22-at-9.54.03-AM.png8621148Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2025-09-22 14:33:102025-09-26 17:31:01What’s the Role of Belonging in Urban Environments?
Graffiti, Street Art & Dockless Mobility
/by Jeffrey Ian RossEver since the emergence of contemporary graffiti and street art, the surfaces where it has been applied and the methods by which it has been disseminated have evolved.
In New York City, for example, graffiti writers began by tagging and bombing walls in their neighborhoods but eventually expanded to similar surfaces in different parts of the city.
Soon thereafter, writers started “getting up” in subway stations, tunnels, and cars. When graffiti was placed on the outside of trains, it enabled writers to go “all city.”
This activity, along with the places where graffiti appeared, morphed into freight and passenger trains, which helped disseminate the writers’ work across regions, the country, and in some cases, internationally.
Along the way, other mobile surfaces like box vans and delivery trucks were increasingly hit.
The shift from static walls to means of transportation introduced a crucial idea: mobility could serve as a medium, expanding both the audience and reach of graffiti and street art.
Now, in the contemporary city, dockless bikes and scooters are increasingly becoming sites for graffiti and street art.
Stickers and tags placed on these mobile platforms extend the same logic that animated early train graffiti: visibility through circulation.
This evolving relationship between graffiti/street art and urban mobility reveals how writers and artists continually adapt to changes in society to keep their work in motion and in public view.
That being said, it’s important to acknowledge that not only do surfaces present opportunities, but they also present constraints. In the case of bikes and scooters, the size is small, and because of the construction, certain types of graffiti and street art are better suited. Thus, in many cases, stickers may be the easiest to apply.
So what?
This development matters primarily for its cultural significance, technological relevance, and political communication.
First, mobile graffiti/street art challenges the static, property-based logic of the city. It asserts presence where the writer/artist might otherwise be excluded.
Second, by targeting new mobility systems (e.g., bikes and scooters), graffiti and street art are increasingly part of the digital economy and the so-called “smart city.” It turns corporate tools of efficiency into carriers of unregulated expression.
Third, this mobility transforms both authorship and audience. Finally, by using shared mobility platforms as canvases, artists reclaim space in a city increasingly privatized by technology companies. It is a subtle, yet potent, form of resistance.
The Clearing
/by Jeffrey Ian RossThe drive to the Johnston farm, one of my father’s clients, always felt long, but the visits were mostly fun and always an adventure. The place had the basics: a farmhouse, a barn, a silo, cows, pigs, and at least one dog. When my father consulted with Mr. Johnston and my mother, if she came along, chatted with Mrs. Johnston, my older brother, sister, and I would play in the barn, sometimes with the Johnston boy.
The barn was the best part. To my ten-year-old eyes, it was enormous. On each side of the main floor were haystacks and baled hay. We spent what seemed like hours playing tag in the maze-like tunnels built into the haystacks or swinging from a rope tied to the rafters and letting go into piles of hay. Below the floor were stalls with pigs and cows; they were ridiculously loud and aggressive.
But on one visit, my brother and sister weren’t there. While my parents talked inside the house, the Johnston boy, barely a teenager, asked me if I wanted to join him outside to survey the property. Just before we stepped out, he picked up a rifle, and I thought nothing of it.
After a short walk, we came to a clearing and spotted a small dog sitting upright in the distance. The boy said it had been there for a few days and hadn’t moved. He added that the dog was not theirs and was trespassing. He also said that the animal must probably be lame. His words tumbled out quickly, as if rehearsed.
Then, without pause, he leveled the rifle to his shoulder. The Johnston boy looked down the barrel and aimed. A crack split the air. The dog toppled. Silence. He turned, as if nothing had happened. We left the body where it lay.
It was the first time I had seen a defenseless animal killed so casually. Alone and unsettled, I said nothing, out of shock, maybe fear. Perhaps he wanted to impress me. Maybe it was something darker. I never told my parents, but the brazen suddenness of that act has been an enduring memory for me.
Author’s Note: “Johnston” is a pseudonym
Photo Credit:
Photographer: Stan Shebs
Title: Farm in the Kitchener area of Ontario
What’s the Role of Belonging in Urban Environments?
/by Jeffrey Ian RossIn most urban settings, a sense of belonging is an important foundation for political participation. Political participation (also referred to as political engagement/mobilization) includes actions that are designed to express, claim, maintain, or expand individual and community justice, legitimacy, or power. And by belonging, I’m not simply talking about attachment, social connection, or loyalty, but about a deep feeling in which place and space are integral to personal identity and meaning.
These distinctions matter. While connection to a place can be instrumental, and loyalty may be strategic, belonging implies an affective and positive bond. Such attachment often affects/motivates a person’s desire and capacity to perceive and articulate grievances when a block, neighborhood, district, or city is threatened.
Admittedly, the causal relationship between belonging and political mobilization is not straightforward. In some cases, political engagement emerges from experiences of exclusion or displacement, where the absence of belonging generates claims to recognition and rights. Furthermore, belonging also operates unevenly across spatial areas. For example, what it means to belong to a block differs from what it means to be attached to a city, and how people respond in the political sphere may vary based on the attachment they feel for each different geographic entity.
These dynamics are also shaped in part by the quality and duration of social interactions. Sustained and positive encounters with neighbors, local workers, businesses, or community organizations tend to reinforce belonging, while recurrently negative or conflictual interactions (including criminal victimization) may erode it. Thus, belonging is not fixed but continually produced and contested in everyday urban life.
Expressions of belonging take multiple forms. Material practices such as home-making, memorialization, or the use of streets and public spaces can demonstrate attachment to place. Informal street-level symbolic markers often connected with street culture (e.g., graffiti, street art, etc.) may signal identification in visible ways. Institutional practices, such as branded signage, neighborhood newsletters, or city-sponsored campaigns, attempt to inscribe belonging into the urban landscape. Belonging can even manifest in less direct actions, for example, in the maintenance of civility, norms of cleanliness (e.g., cleaning the sidewalk in front of your residence or business), or everyday restraint (i.e., treating others with respect).
Although visible signs of identity can indicate attachment, they can also be performative or commodified branding detached from durable commitment.
In DC, where I live, belonging is demonstrated in lots of different ways, including displaying the DC flag on porches, murals, bumper stickers, clothing, and tattoos. Similarly, the 202 area code is placed on local clothing brands like District of Clothing, One Love Massive, and Made in the District that sell shirts, hats, and hoodies with neighborhood names (e.g., “Brookland,” “Petworth”). We also see slogans like “Don’t Mute DC” placed on this type of clothing. The “Taxation Without Representation” license plate encapsulates a widely shared grievance and serves as a civic identifier. DC has numerous neighborhood murals, paying homage to well-known homegrown musicians like jazz great Duke Ellington in Shaw to or the grandfather of Go-go, Chuck Brown. Bands often “rep” their neighborhood during performances. The “Don’t Mute DC” movement (2019) defended neighborhood cultural expression when Central Communications, a Metro PCS store in Shaw, was told to stop playing Go-go on speakers. Block parties, cookouts, and Go-go shows often double as neighborhood identity affirmations. Events like Adams Morgan Day or the H Street Festival showcase neighborhood pride while attracting visitors. Meanwhile, graffiti and street art may contain neighborhood names, abbreviations, or slang.
Yet markers of identity do not automatically translate into political action. Wearing a shirt with the name of the neighborhood on it or displaying a city flag does not guarantee that an individual will sign a petition, attend a protest, or join a boycott. The key issue is whether attachments to place channel grievances into collective political mobilization, and what kinds of actions are residents willing to engage in. Where belonging is absent, grievances may remain diffuse, limiting the scope for individuals and communities’ claims for justice, legitimacy, or claims to power.
All being said, belonging is a start.
Photo Credit
Title New York, New York. Children escape the heat of the East Side by using fire hydrant as a shower bath (1943).
Photographer: Smith, Roger