At least in print, my sense is that this topic is dominated by angry voices proclaiming that public bathroom are a disgracefully neglected human right. Especially for themselves. But with amazingly little to say about the practical realities on the supply side. Public restrooms don't come from Santa Claus, and they cost a lot both to build and maintain. Then there are the costs and miseries of security. Gratitude toward business providing restrooms seems nonexistent.
(Comparing to, for instance, people campaigning against hunger. Those folks seem keenly aware that food for the needy has to come from somewhere - whether donated or paid for - then be sorted and stored, possibly repackaged and transported, maybe prepared and cooked, then regularly distributed to those needing it. And if you botch even one step, then you have failed at feeding the poor.)
You pay taxes and taxes fund things which are good for society as a whole. It's not that hard. You don't beg for donations. This stuff isn't optional or the result of benevolent benefactors. If you live in society then you contribute to society.
If taxes are what matters, America would have the best public restrooms in the world because it's the richest country.
But what really matters is culture. If you have a small percentage of people who are bad actors and are not punished for it, they ruin it for everyone.
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Let me give you a small example of culture and enforcement. I live in a small city in Romania. I once traveled by plane to London. The airport in my city is very small. When boarding, despite the fact that the zigzag queue was 3 lines long, people lifted the cordon and went straight to the door. I was probably the only one who followed it.
When we arrived at Heathrow, people did the same thing. The zigzag queue at Heathrow is very long, so it feels slightly fairer to skip it if there's literally no one in front of you (it was 2 AM or something). But as soon as the first person skipped the line and a second person was going for it, a guard noticed him and ordered him to go back. He tried to "negotiate" but the guard only lifted a finger and told him to "go back".
No one tried to skip after those two.
When you have a culture with no enforcement, a small minority (maybe 2%) of people ruin it for everyone and you feel like an idiot still following the rules. This makes the majority imitate the bad actors because "I might as well too".
No amount of money in the world can fix bad culture.
Are you saying you think citizens should blindly follow even pointless rules in order to be a good culture? Because otherwise your example makes no sense to me. What is gained by people walking completely through a large empty queue?
You can't pay janitors enough to deal with degenerates who routinely deliberately destroy public bathrooms in western countries. It's a job for police and the courts, but those are dysfunctional in a way which "more money" doesn't fix.
Result is all the clean and useful bathrooms are private, because only thus can shit-smearing vandals be reasonably excluded (and only then, somewhat.)
So you can't pay a janitor enough to deal with vandals, but somehow the minimum wage bartender that already has to tend to a bar and cash register is able to keep their toilets clean no problem?
It's not that hard to make toilets that are nearly indestructible and can be very efficiently cleaned by a guy in a "hazmat" suit with a pressure washer. It probably wouldn't be that hard to largely automate this. But the market for this is small and mostly governments, so prices are high and innovation is low.
Do you realize how much money police arrests, courts, and jail cost? A janitor and occassional repairs are way cheaper any way I can look at it. There arent gangs of people walking around with grinders or hacksaws fucking up as much stuff as possible despite what you may want to believe.
This is society. Its origins are people banding together to collectivize violence and its legitimate uses in order to protect themselves from the state of nature in which the strong take what they will and the weak suffer what they must.
Should we also be grateful for restaurants for having seats, or for stores having breathable air?
Cities should not be incompatible with basic human existence. I can bring a bagged lunch and eat it on-the-go. Would people be as open to me taking a shit in a bag on the sidewalk?
Yes. I am one of those voices. And my argument isn't that they do not cost money. My argument is that we can afford it, but chose to instead give the money to people and companies who already have enough. And I know literally no one who claims public restrooms are free to maintain.
Toilets and water should be basic infrastructure (and in some places they are). Business with toilets are a really unreliable way to offer toilets, since they will all come up with their own rules.
And it is ridiculous to pretend they can't be afforded. Ever been to Japan? Every train station has toilets since the 80s, literally every other store has freely usable public toilets. They all use the same signage. They are clean and free to use.
What is the point of society if not creating an environment within which we all can thrive? Yes I know, some want it to maximize the thriving only for certain (rich) people. I call these egoists.
Exactly. If a business can't afford to provide a bathroom, it can't afford to run a business.
It's like saying child labor should be legalised because your business would go bankrupt without underpaid child workers: it just means your business model isn't viable!
> public bathroom are a disgracefully neglected human right.
Well, they are. Just as drinking fountains.
> Public restrooms don't come from Santa Claus, and they cost a lot both to build and maintain. Then there are the costs and miseries of security. Gratitude toward business providing restrooms seems nonexistent.
s/restroom/park/g. Hey, it's still true! And explains why there are almost no public parks around.
Edit: oh, and before someone comments on unhygienicity of drinking fountains: you're not supposed to kiss the nozzle or, heavens forbid, to fellate it to drink. Let about 1/2–1/3 of the top of the spout inside of your mouth and drink it; leave the rest outside.
I live near a park. I watch that drinking fountain. They bathe in there at times. They lift their dogs to drink from it despite. It breaks because they kick the button.
They are the losers, the educated affluent, the youthful of our society.
In Switzerland I did not see such issues with the drinking fountains which are everywhere.
It's certainly a different environment from a large American city, though we also have misbehaving youths and a few drug addicts that are perhaps homeless.
This is just a question of resource allocation and priorities. If a society can afford the displaced costs of unregulated production and extraction, or fleets of aircraft carriers and upkeep for however many thousand nuclear weapons it possesses, or oligarchs (how many is it now?) diverting wealth into superyachts, it can also afford sufficient spaces for people to piss in and janitors to clean them.
But - my experience - it's just another day of the week when advocates for hunger relief do everything from spending money on mass-market advertising, to showing up en masse at city gov't meetings to argue for the laws|zoning|city support|whatever they need, to personally mopping the floor at the soup kitchen after the meal has been served.
Vs., as a generality, "support" for public restrooms seems to consists of complaining about the status quo either privately or on the web, then going back to suffering.
Based on how involved various churches seem to be in hunger relief stuff, I'd bet most of those groups' organizational advantage comes straight from pulpits and pews. Say whatever you will about the Bad Things that religions have done all through history, or about their deities and beliefs being BS - but organized religion is organized, and understands how to make stuff happen. And it's pretty common for their Believers to also believe in working pretty hard to do just that.
Vs. - at least in private comments I hear, and the occasional essays I recall seeing on HN about this - there have been essentially zero suggestions of ever lifting a finger to address the public restroom problem. Send an unhappy email the Mayor? Nope. Google search for what a city council candidate might have said on the subject before you vote? Never. Even being tidy in the restroom of a non-restaurant business, and showing some hint of gratitude to the clerk? It is a point in favor of this particular article that it doesn't advocate an entitled and thankless attitude.
You're absolutely correct, but the sense of entitlement from the typical HN commenter is boundless.
Many of the people who downvoted you may want nice things, but would never contribute back. They're exactly the people who would immediately ruin it. Sometimes the grass really is greener, and it's usually because there's a system at work to keep it that way.
Everyone who downvoted contributes back. They are the people who would not ruin it.
You on the other hand would definitely not want to contribute, and if any were built you'd go out of your way to ruin it, though indirectly (e.g. by working to reduce/remove funding for maintenance)
(Comparing to, for instance, people campaigning against hunger. Those folks seem keenly aware that food for the needy has to come from somewhere - whether donated or paid for - then be sorted and stored, possibly repackaged and transported, maybe prepared and cooked, then regularly distributed to those needing it. And if you botch even one step, then you have failed at feeding the poor.)