It’s interesting that in my flyover-country city, which does not have anything like the wealth, tax base, and history of progressive government which SF and Portland do, we also don’t have anything like the shitting and pissing in public problem that those two fair cities do.
Is public hygiene perhaps part of a petit bourgeois value system which the hip citizens of those cities have moved beyond??
What is the homeless population of your non-progressive flyover-country city?
Is it possible that homeless people prefer to live in wealthy progressive cities like SF and Portland because they are treated (relatively) better there?
We can always do science to it!!! Way to rock the empirical testing of claims citizen journalist!
Vaguely related, from 2008:
People should ignore signs telling them that it is legal to urinate in certain public places in Nottingham, the city council said.
The signs, which were put up by pranksters in and around Nottingham, are designed to look official.
They feature a toilet sign and include the words: “Public Urination Permitted After 7.30pm”.
a technical solution to a social problem didn’t provide the promised results?
Hey, SF can do whatever it wants to attract the homeless and FSM bless 'em, but to do that and then to complain about piss and shit on the sidewalks smacks of cognitive dissonance.
Ever heard of “Greyhound Therapy”? The homeless people dumping all over San Francisco were actually dumped here by your fine city.
The idea that San Francisco is some sort of monument to liberal politics is now a good 30 years stale.
In real progressive states, such as Denmark (the most conservative of progressive states), they hire people to keep public restrooms in a useful state. They also provide health care assistance and housing to people with addiction or mental health issues. San Francisco is attempting the latter, but it’s kind of hard to pull off when every conservative backwater in the country wants you to fail and need only pay the price of a Greyhound bus ticket to make it so.
Do you know what my city is, and can you show a citation that homeless were sent from my city to SF, or are you making it up??
Sorry, you seemed so amused by the idea of latte-sipping liberals being inundated with human filth, that I just assumed you were from Vegas. It was an honest mistake, I can assure you!
Everybody pees…
…for 21 seconds.
I am still trying to understand why people (of divers species) prefer to pee upon large surfaces such as walls. Surely, one could go wees in the open air just as easily.
Cities like Portland and SF have relatively kind and stable climates, and – compared to many places in the country – lots of services for the homeless. Portland, at least, grudgingly tolerates camping and public sleeping-in-parks, and has at least two semi-permanent self-monitored homeless camps.
The sheer numbers of transients that these policies attract is what make public pottying problematical.
We have a small number of single-occupancy restrooms in downtown L.Á. They’re automatically self-cleaning and always busy.
Although not a perfect solution, due in part to the expensive cost of each unit, they help A LOT.
So fuck the history of SF and Portland…
Are those like these ones that Seattle got rid of for the same reasons that @stefanjones mentions?
Maybe same in concept. Downtown L.A.'s have been in operation for around 10 years now…
Both San Francisco and Portland tried similar units. They ran into similar problems.
I don’t know what Los Angeles is doing differently. Maybe they’re monitored.
As I wrote uptopic: Public restrooms which are going to remain clean and decent are going to have to have staff. A cleaning crew that goes in a few times a day, and an attendant with a panic button. You could hire people on the way back up for both jobs.
Ok, I’m definitely going to have to time myself.
Marking territory? Also, avoiding exposing one’s genitals to the world, might help protect them a tad.
As I wrote uptopic: these have been going strong for 10 years and are automatically cleaned by 21st Century technology that clearly Los Ángeles has been keeping from our neighbors up north…
