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San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet

sfchronicle.com

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Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet

#291

Post by [deleted] »

aliqot wrote: post #283
Kalium wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SF is governed mostly by the people who live there. The core of the problem is that SF has spent decades investing in giving every person, block, and neighborhood ways to participate in planning and changes. Generally this means giving out some kind of veto. So when the time comes to do something "Yes, but do it somewhere else" is the predominant response. To put it another way - everybody wants more shelters for the…

Thank you for your perspective on this. In my locale, this type of thing is hard to imagine, we'll feed anybody who can hold a fork here. We have almost zero resources for indigents here, so homeless and others without are a bit rare. What are the resources (aside from this restroom) afforded to those without, near SFO? I'm tempted to think about this time when a local made a habit of feeding the deer, eventually the…

[deleted]

Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet

#292

Post by asow92 »

d23 wrote: post #236
asow92 wrote: post #160

Why is it that the deepest blue areas of the country have some of the most abject inequity and poverty? It seems that there's a fine line between compassion and enablement when it comes to the deep blue municipalities of New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, etc. Sure the rustbelt, deep south, and Appalachia are areas with similar problems and mixed politics, but they also somehow feel different.

Inequality is pointless to talk about in a vacuum. Blue states tend to have higher wealth overall, so it's unsurprising there's a bigger measure of "inequality." On basically every economic point, blue states are better: https://appliedsentience.com/2020/07/30/economics-are-red-or... For this reason, blue states also end up essentially subsidizing the red ones: https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2022/01/22/blue-states-…

Better economically, with more tent cities too.

Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet

#293

Post by clankyclanker »

roguas wrote: post #267
system16 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not even exaggerating. I worked as a contractor some time back for a major Canadian telecom company that no longer exists. I remember spending hours of meetings on calls with no less than 10 stakeholders (and in some meetings senior management) "circling back" to get a decision on button position. Not a single one of these people were a designer/UX person. I'd imagine it's even worse in the public sector.

There is probably some fallacy to explain this. My intuition tells me that if you have meaningless job (or you feel as if) you tend to make big deal out of small decisions, assert your territory of control/reign etc. This leads to what you described. I guess it also offers an easy cop out for them if the button will be placed in the worst possible way. "Since Jerry was also on the call and I always thought he has fin…

Bikeshedding?

http://bikeshed.com

Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet

#294

Post by mikeryan »

lr4444lr wrote: post #224
mattnewton wrote: post #206

One of the reasons this toilet is so expensive no doubt, is that the new SF public toilets are self cleaning and will have attendants on duty to try to prevent this. The one on golden gate park and Haight closes after each visitor to spray the inside down like a dishwasher, and has an attendant on duty to make sure no one is inside while it does that (and to generally discourage people from shady stuff). It's not per…

They have to pay an attendant hourly just to be sure no one is in there while the self clean runs? Why can't it operate based on a weight sensor?

When unmonitored public toilets have had issues with people camping out while partaking illicit substances and other X-rated activities.

Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet

#296

Post by aliqot »

TeeMassive wrote: post #262
aliqot wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what ways is SFO right wing? I don't see much representation of that type as far as elected officials. Is this a term used in spirit or something I'm overlooking?

Replace "right" with "those who doesn't want to do the right thing" and most political speech kinda makes more sense. The Left/Right split of viewing politics is a false dichotomy that made sense only about a century after the French Revolution, in France.

>Replace "right" with "those who doesn't want to do the right thing" and most political speech kinda makes more sense.

>The Left/Right split of viewing politics is a false dichotomy that made sense only about a century after the French Revolution, in France.

I don't think that's a fair characterization. I don't think people affiliate with a certain party seeking to "not do the right thing". Saying it is a false dichotomy while still saying one side doesn't do the right thing is a bit two sided. I am, however, getting the idea that there is some subtle derision being conveyed when the term 'right wing' is used, which is unfortunate because at least to me I'm being pre-loaded with bias about people I don't really know yet.

Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet

#297

Post by spaceman_2020 »

michaelscott wrote: post #49

> San Francisco, which is struggling with a troubling homelessness and public-defecation crisis, needs more public toilets. The irony in this statement, given the reasons why this toilet costs so much, is absolutely unreal. I had to check the date on this article to make sure it wasn't an old April's Fools skit or something, but it seems red tape and NIMBYism have escalated to such a degree in SF that (a) securing bu…

Is this the real SF experience? Or is it media hype?

I’m completely unfamiliar with the city. My only experience of America is staying in Atlanta for 6 months during an exchange program, but that was years back.

Some of the stories of bureaucratic meddling and political corruption sound like something I’d see back home in India. Always had this impression that America was above that.

Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet

#299

Post by hot_gril »

dekhn wrote: post #256
hot_gril wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in tech companies with many offices tend to call cities by the nearest airport, cause that's what the local office (or datacenter) is called.

Yes, I worked in Moutain View, AKA MTV. And the SF office of Google is SFO. But nobody calls the city SFO.

Maybe you call it that if the entire point of the city to you is just the office, haha. I do hesitate to call my home city "LAX."

Re: San Francisco is spending $1.7M on one public toilet

#300

Post by renlo »

kolinko wrote: post #165
xwdv wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever taken a shit in a public toilet? It is a disgusting, degrading experience. I’m still traumatized from the one time I had no choice, and I said never again.

It really depends on a place. I used public toilets in Europe without much issue.

All of the public toilets I used as a tourist in Europe cost a euro, bathroom operators have an incentive to keep their bathrooms clean. San Francisco (lived there for 4 years) does not adequately maintain their toilets, echoing other comments in this thread, they're literally the worst I've seen. Even the NYC MTA (i.e. subway) bathrooms were better, bathrooms which tend to be portrayed as being especially dirty
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