Jyväskylä spends up to €70,000 yearly removing graffiti

Jyväskylä spends tens of thousands of euros each year cleaning graffiti and tags from public spaces, but one local artist argues the city is wasting money, Yle reports.

A 20-year-old Jyväskylä resident, identified only as Joonas, says he continues to paint and tag illegal surfaces despite the risk of fines for vandalism. He views the city’s removal efforts as a pointless expense and believes he has a right to use urban space as a taxpayer.

“A fine here or there won’t ruin my life,” Joonas says. He began tagging as a teenager and sees graffiti as a global art form deeply tied to self-expression. Anonymity is central to the culture, he explains, making it difficult for outsiders to fully understand the movement.

Jyväskylä’s parks and streets cost €40,000–50,000 annually to clean, with an additional €20,000 spent last year by property services. VR, Finland’s state railway, spends up to €500,000 yearly on graffiti removal nationwide.

Joonas acknowledges graffiti artists are not a monolithic group—some treat it as a profession, others as vandalism, with most falling somewhere in between. He describes Jyväskylä’s scene as semi-open, with a shared understanding among artists. “It’s like the Wild West at night,” he says.

Graffiti culture emerged in 1970s New York, arriving in Finland in the mid-1980s. Initially seen as a fresh art form, it was later condemned as vandalism. Tags—stylized signatures—are a core part of the tradition, often spread deliberately across cities in a practice known as “bombing.”

Joonas admits the thrill of risk is part of the appeal but insists he follows unwritten rules, avoiding certain surfaces. For him, each piece is a statement: “We are here.”