I was recently in Amsterdam (you know, the place where they said "welp we'll never fully outlaw prostitution & drugs so let's allow but regulate") and appreciated a series of very public urinals. Which I assume follows the same logic "people are going to pee on the street no matter what, let's give them a place to help control it" - I quite like the idea that acknowledging certain human traits are essentially a force of nature, so why not redirect that firehose towards a more tasteful target than impossibly try to stop it.
Shout out to Dublin, that closed all its Victorian public inner-city toilets b/c it couldn't be bothered to police them (much as it doesn't police ASB anywhere), shifting responsibility to local businesses, most of which are now "Toilets are for customers only" as a result..
In Belfast we had neither public toilets nor public bins for many years. Too easy to drop bombs into. No double decker buses either at the defusal robot couldn't climb stairs.
Or even simpler - build more green spaces with grass, shrubbery and trees. Peeing on those is harmless and they provide other significant benefits as well.
The article mentions that too, although as a secondary explanation for some reason.
> it's said that the inclined casts of mortar also had the task to maintain a certain public decorum and therefore prevent Venetians from urinating in the corners of the calli.
I rather buy the idea that the secondary explanation is actually the primary reason. In the first picture you can clearly see such a structure in a corner that doesn't connect to any kind of street/alley. Thus, I personally, don't buy the primary reason. Of course, unless that specific spot was made much later in time.