Where did all the public bathrooms go?

Xi Jinping really will be remembered as the Toilet King, he did issue a few decrees early on, and now in every Tier-88 rural Chinese village road you can find a modern toilet (yes, squat), clean, with water. Paper is hit and miss still though. Cross to Hong Kong and it's the same, but paper is reliable. Hong Kong is definitely richer.

Then take any shopping mall in Bangkok, that's an absolutely next level experience, clean, smells good, relaxing music. Mmm...

And EU is a freaking horror show. In many public toilets there's a used syringe compartment as well. Truly a 5-star service.

The worst 10% of society determine what we can and can't have. The "commons" aren't having public sex, shooting up drugs, or destroying the bathrooms with lack of... etiquette. The commons are victimized when these things happen and then there's eventually no choice but to shut them down unless there's willingness to crack down on the explicit problematic behavior.

Restrooms are unique in that they are available to the public but, due to their inherently private nature, are a place where it is difficult to enforce social norms. Because of this, within the confines of the restroom itself, the authorities are all but irrelevant.

I was scrolling through the addictive and easy to stumble into YouTube reels feature and came upon a livestream of a gentleman having some sort of 'public restroom party' in a stall. By this, I mean he had collected every roll of toilet paper available, shredded them into confetti, and was throwing the confetti up into the air while blasting music at full volume out of his bluetooth speaker. He had a few thousand viewers and people appeared to be donating money for supercomments. I didn't stay to watch the end of the livestream, but I don't imagine he cleaned up.

By the time the private-but-livestreamed confetti party is over, the damage is done. You can try to anticipate every single unwanted activity in a restroom and try to prevent it beforehand (e.g. tinted lights to prevent IV drug use), but someone, somewhere will find a way to creatively make the owners decide a few frustrated customers who are told "no public restroom" is a small price to pay for the alternative.

Similarly, free public bath/shower disappeared in SF. Some wealthy person (forgot his name) built some free public showers in the 1900, but they eventually got all closed. Paris still have about ~20 free public bath/shower running. Wondering if we should also bring those back. This is a basic human need (after restrooms and food).

There are countries were public bathrooms are everywhere - New Zealand is a good example. As a tourist, you're never too far from one. Which is good, since quite often that may be the only human made thing, surrounded by beautiful nature.

https://cartes.app/?cat=toilettes&perspective=non#14.58/48.8...

Japan seems to be just about a best-case scenario, due to the ubiquity of convenience stores, the government's seemingly high prioritization of building and maintaining public toilets, and a culture which places a high value on cleanliness.

It seems like it would be hard to replicate in countries that lack clean and plentiful public toilets without changing the culture first. But reading another comment it sounds like China has made great strides in improving the state of their public toilets due to a strong push from leadership. So it is possible, but again it would start with actually wanting to improve things.

Men seeking same-sex encounters transformed the pissoir into something its planners never intended. Who ultimately determines the meaning of a public space: its designers, authorities, or the people who use it?

The law determines that public space can't be used for any sexual activity.

I'm not sure what constructive classroom discussion you can have when the example is based on the law being broken.

LavSeeker - shows toilets listed in OpenStreetMap.

https://f-droid.org/packages/org.woheller69.lavatories/

They are definitely not thought for women.

It's interesting that this subject is awash with euphemisms. At least pissoir is properly descriptive.

https://lazyholidayplanner.com/essential-tools/japan-toilet-...

https://www.cnn.com/travel/gallery/japanese-public-toilet-ph...

https://www.toilet-map-jp.com/en

https://toiletrix.org/toilets/japan

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Public_toilets_i...

Tons of free to use BBQs too.

I had some trash in my car I needed to get rid of: McDonalds? None outside, Tacobell? none outside, CVS? none outside OR inside, The entire rest of that shopping center? nope.

Luckily gas stations still have them but its sad to see these community service type things disappear.

this complicates public bathrooms quite a bit, and ADA requirements do too... once you've got a place to sit and doors on rooms you've got the vagrancy and drug use problem

though China does ok with the model of a big room with holes in the ground and almost no dividers or affordances at all (everyone brings their own toilet paper, old people bring their own chairs)... they have public workers to hose them out

Well-meaning activists lobbied to make toilets free, but they didn't build a base to support the continued use and maintenance of those now-free toilets.

I am not sure of the real-world risk, but to hear Internet commenters, if you are a man and you urinate in public, you may be on a fast path to being a registered sex-offender for no other reason. That is an obviously sad consequence that no homeless guy wants to be burdened with.

The first time I needed to go and I was out on the streets, I veered into the nearest resort hotel downtown, figuring I'd just be lost in the crowd of tourists there. It was night but not particularly late. As soon as I got inside the men's room and in front of a urinal, a security guard was on my case. He said restrooms were for hotel guests only. I was very apologetic, but at least he let me finish and let me get away peacefully.

For all y'all complaining how the public libraries and other facilities are infested with smelly homeless, those are the ones who try to live honestly and stay near sanitation facilities. The libraries saved my bacon when I was on the streets. They were a quiet refuge during the day. I didn't make trouble; I just needed to stay in the A/C and stay clean and have a bathroom nearby.

People complain about poo in the streets of major cities, but the reality is, if a person cannot afford a restaurant, a coffeehouse, a motel, or whatever else, they will not have access to restroom facilities, and we all poop sometime. So the lack of those public restroom facilities in urban centers is just one more inhumane, hostile environment that tells us to pay up or GTFO of polite society.

Just 2 weeks ago, saw people pissing/shitting at a pull-over in Iceland. Laws explicitly forbid that... But when you gotta go, you go.

And Iceland also hits people with NO public restrooms at all, and pay restrooms to boot. I saw upwards of $1.50 for bathroom usage.

And in the USA, bathrooms are free, but almost always exclusively corporate funded, and usually "customers only". And in my local city, there's a few real city public restrooms. They naturally lock themselves after 11pm. Yeah, it's anti-homeless shit.

Here in the US, where I am all public restrooms were gone by the late 80s.