The problem is that graffiti is in many ways a disruptive art-form, and to try and institutionalize it is just asking for problems. In my home town, the city built a skateboard park and had a huge thing against graffiti, before eventually hiring somebody to graffiti it professionally. That person's work eventually got graffiti'd over; I think the city then got them to do it again, with similar outcome...

I think part of it is because graffiti is an element of the much-lauded "broken window theory." If a wall's graffiti'd, even if it's a designated graffiti wall, it implies graffiti is accepted within a given area and thus it will naturally spread to everywhere else. Perhaps the only real solution is to designate specific areas as "graffiti O.K." while cleaning it up everywhere else and stopping short of endorsing those areas as pro-graffiti.

Second thing is that I love how the Sun uses the word "Hooligans." Seriously? Can we reserve that for sports fans who vandalize property or cause physical harm? The Sun's editors sound like conservative dumbasses every time they call a group of vandals either that or "punks". Actually, it's the latter I find especially offensive, since I know many punks who haven't even vandalized a bathroom stall, much less slashed tires (Such as it was used earlier this year).