Sao Paulo did it in 2006. And it has not only eliminated visual pollution, but made advertising more efficient:
Anna Freitag, the marketing manager for Hewlett-Packard Brazil, said her company had never considered how inefficient billboards and the like were until they were illegal. “A billboard is media on the road,” she told the FT. “In rational purchases it means less effectiveness… as people are involved in so many things that it makes it difficult to execute the call to action.”
“This Space Available“, a documentary about Sao Paulo and other movements to rid cities of billboards, will be shown at the Dallas Film Festival, which runs April 12-22.
