[techteach00]

Yup. Public trash cans too.

[burnt-resistor]

You can tell which countries have and haven't experienced urban bombing terrorism by the style of public refuse receptacles. Before: concrete, rock, metal, and wood; after: minimal material hoops supporting transparent bags.

Also, public drinking fountains I think are better signals of community commonwealth infrastructure than benches because they take more planning, infrastructure, investment, and maintenance to deliver.

Another problem is the privatization of formerly public spaces, often with an essentially mandatory retail consumption component that didn't exist previously. People aren't as free to simply exist in spaces without buying shit than 50 years ago.

[techteach00]

Ya but where I'm from in New Jersey we never had public bombings and the trash cans still vanished

[amanaplanacanal]

And public restrooms. Oh, people shit on the sidewalk in your city? Huh, I wonder why that is.

[linksnapzz]

Sane people who aren't under the influence of some substance, who cannot find a toilet, are not the cause of the public defecation problem.

This is an addiction/mental health/criminal justice problem-and the lack of public restrooms is downstream and not upstream of it.