> To ancient Romans, the practice of sitting on a shared toilet in an open room full of people was entirely ordinary. That's a funny thing to say for an American, because, to Europeans, American toilets are much too public: doors don't go to the floor or ceiling, and even "walls" are thin sheets of wood/plastic loosely joined together with huge spaces between them. It seems, Americans don't trust one another to sit a…
In many public places, it's a homeless / drug deterrent. There's a perception that a private stall creates an opportunity for drug use among the indigent population. It's an interesting commentary on the "world's richest nation" when public stalls are made uncomfortable to deter homeless from having a place to defecate. By contrast, look at the number of coffee shop bathrooms (for example) that use a code system to further keep out the riff-raff, and in exchange generally offer a more private setting - maybe not European standards, but more private nonetheless.