Territoriality Isn't the Issue Here

So I mentioned in last night's (or should I say this morning's) post that I would be happy to give out as much information "as I am comfortable giving out". The reason I say this is not because I'm a territorial bitch, but because I don't want to see these places destroyed by too much traffic. There are plenty of explorers who do get territorial though; I've had people send me messages asking me to take down, rename, alter, or make locations on the UER database available only to full members because they see it as "theirs" somehow. I respect those who do this in order to keep abandoned locations protected, but territoriality completely contradicts the whole idea of urbex-- we're trespassing anyway, we can't be territorial about something that isn't legally ours in the first place.

That being said, the reason I (and others) are protective about these locations is because I honestly care about them and would hate to see them ruined by graffiti or looting. I've seen too many abandonments completely destroyed by the amount of traffic that goes through them from too much exposure. Here's a scenario: I find a beautiful abandoned house. I take some great pictures, put them up in the UER database and fill out all the facts for the house's webpage. I make the location viewable to anyone who wants to look, not just full members. Some random kid finds out about this house because of Google and decides it's the perfect place to go paintballing or tagging, and invites all his friends. I come back to take some photos a few weeks later and the walls are covered in pink splotches and bad graffiti.

Now, I'm not saying graffiti isn't art. But bad graffiti is bad graffiti; GOOD graffiti can definitely be called art, no matter how legal or illegal it is. Urbexers and graffiti artists share the same conflict; art vs. legality.

Some examples of what I think is beautiful graffiti art:









And some examples of horrible, disfiguring graffiti:

(Photos courtesy of Google images)

So don't be offended if you ask and I don't want to give you every piece of information possible. I'll be happy to tell you what type of building it was and where I took the picture inside that building, and maybe even what state or city it's in, but I certainly won't tell you what road it's located on, how to get there or how to get in.

Cheers :-)