It’s right here:
When design solutions address the symptoms of a problem (like sleeping
outside in public) rather than the cause of the problem (like the myriad
societal shortcomings that lead to homelessness), that problem is
simply pushed down the street.
How is a bench designer (or any designer) supposed to deal with the causes of homelessness? Only in the most basic situations is going after the cause better than a stopping a symptom (like fixing a tooth instead of taking pain pills). Sometimes you can’t figure out a cause. Sometimes the cause can be temporal or varied or intractable. Sometimes fixing a cause can be immoral - you can’t totally stop homelessness without removing the freedom to be homeless.
And sometimes you have the wrong cause. We have a guy running for president right now who thinks the cause of terrorism is “radical Islam” and who thinks the solution is carpet bombing. Over-reliance on solutionism is simplistic.
