14 ms·

I don't mean to offend but I suspect it's because people in the USA, at least in cities, just can't take care of public places. There's urine in the train stat

I don't mean to offend but I suspect it's because people in the USA, at least in cities, just can't take care of public places. There's urine in the train stations (either visible or smellable), elevators shut down by faeces, people shouting, yelling and preaching in the streets, also, toilets, often even in private restaurants, are disgusting. I don't mean to say that things are always like this, all the time or in all cities and I understand that it's a minority of people who cause these problems but the problems are far from uncommon. With a place like a public bath in particular, cleanliness is extremely important and I just can't see it working. It only takes one inconsiderate person relieving them self in the water to ruin it for everyone and I find it hard to believe that in a day in an average US city you wouldn't find such a person. My impression is that it works in Japan because the society is extremely communal and you're far, far less likely to find such an inconsiderate person. I can kind of see it working in smaller US communities where people know and respect each other though. In small communities, everyone knows each other and people are much less likely to be inconsiderate towards friends and acquaintances than they are towards strangers.

greggman 9y ago
Agreed but this isn't just a USA thing. Many countries have a culture not taking care of public places. All of Europe comes to mind. As does China.
- dijit 9y ago
  Europe is a broad stroke. UK, sure, Sweden.. not so much.
  - Symbiote 9y ago
    Sweden and the UK seem roughly the same to me. The main streets of large cities are perhaps a bit dirtier in England, but the parks in Sweden are far worse when people leave all their trash for the bottle collector (not just the bottles).
    - dijit 9y ago
      As a person who grew up in Britain and now live in Sweden in cities with a comparable population size, I disagree. London is an exception when it comes to the UK, there is a lot more investment in public services and it's not a true representation of Britain due to its multicultural component.
      - laurencerowe 9y ago
        Sure, London has a level of investment in public services which is unrepresentative of Britain as a whole (though they also pay most of the taxes that fund public services.) But all big cities (and many small ones) are multicultural.
        dijit 9y ago
        that's a stupid point to make. London is more multicultural than the rest of Britain. even if you count the duo-culture the rest of britain has (Pakistani is usually what people refer to when defining "multi-cultural" in the greater context of the UK) then London is still absolutely outclassing everything else by an amazingly wide margin in terms of multi-culturalism. You could argue the Polish influx has created a tri-culture, but really, I lived in London and my neighbors were Russian, Estonian, Finnish, Canadian, South African, Eritrean, Saudi, Indian, Danish, Italian, Brazillian and there was even a girl from Zimbabwe. Nothing like where I came from.. That's a true multi-culture. Regardless, as a person having lived in 2 comparable places in different countries I see a huge difference in the way public spaces are treated (to the benefit of Sweden). I don't doubt that the parent has similar experiences as I wasn't saying it's uncommon. But I have this opinion having actual experience. If you do not have similar experience you are not an authority to tell me how things are. I'm not sure what point you were even trying to make, that Britain has more than just British culture therefore my argument has no ground? :S
  - peteretep 9y ago
    Plenty of public pools in the UK that are in pretty good condition.
- danans 9y ago
  Not certain how you can describe all of Europe that way. In my experience, European countries have very good upkeep of public spaces even by higher developed world standards, and especially compared to the US.
- skrebbel 9y ago
  As a Dutch chauvinist, I beg to differ. We generally take excellent care of public places. This is a combo of culture and government services actually cleaning stuff up every once in a while. Of course, this is HN, so cue some replies about horrible stinky places in the Netherlands, but as a general rule I stand by this. SF is a pile of poo compared to an average Dutch city. And then I haven't even mentioned Luxembourg. That entire country is so clean and tidy that it almost looks like a cartoon.
  - DrScump 9y ago
    SF is a pile of poo compared to an average Dutch city. SF is a pile of poo compared to an average American city, too.
    - skrebbel 9y ago
      Ah right, thanks. I didn't know that :)
      - pbarnes_1 9y ago
        It's not true, though. SF is pretty much average in this regard. Americans in general just don't seem to care about public spaces, pretty much anywhere in the country. I've travelled to many US cities and the only reason other cities some how feel "cleaner" is because there's literally nobody walking in them. The cities made for walking (like NYC and maybe Boston) are on par with SF. Maybe less dog poo everywhere though.
        ihaveajob 9y ago
        This reminds me of my earlier experiences walking around LA. My natural instinct looking at the state of disarray in some of the streets was that I was on the wrong side of town, because where I come from (Granada, Spain) that's what you notice when you venture into the slummy areas. In LA, however, you need to readjust your gauge, as this was a fairly safe area, just not well taken care of.
        9y ago
- Veratyr 9y ago
  There are other places yes but out of the countries I've visited, the US is definitely one of the worst. All the Europe I've visited (Paris, Berlin, Zurich, Istanbul, south-eastern region of Russia) has been about as well kept as Australia, my home country. Aside from Malaysia, I can't think of a country that's worse than the US. Even the (disclaimer: nicer, less impoverished) parts of Mexico I've visited were arguably better maintained. Another disclaimer: I live in the Bay Area and that's where most (but not all) of my feelings about US public spaces come from.
  - dtech 9y ago
    It might be the large US population of homeless people worsens this (especially in the bay area), as they have no better option than to leave their waste in public places.
    - Symbiote 9y ago
      That's still the US's problem to fix though. Other countries provide public toilets. With a quick search, I can only find maps for the London Underground and Britain generally: [1] http://content.tfl.gov.uk/toilets-map.pdf http://content.tfl.gov.uk/toilets-map.pdf [2] https://greatbritishpublictoiletmap.rca.ac.uk/ https://greatbritishpublictoiletmap.rca.ac.uk/ (many semi-public also listed)
    - legulere 9y ago
      At least according to Wikipedia, many European countries have a higher homeless rate than the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_...
      - ihaveajob 9y ago
        The US is a big place, which averages away the extremes. In San Francisco, population 868k, there are about 10-12k homeless folks (http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/San-Francisco-homelessness-by-the-numbers-10767735.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/San-Francisco-homeless...), which puts it at over 1% homelessness. That's a tragic number for such a wealthy city.
- rconti 9y ago
  I'm not sure about littering/pissing/etc, but as an American, I'm constantly surprised by the amount of graffiti when I go to Europe. It far outstrips what I see here. As a Californian, of course, they have far fewer homeless people there :)
zxcmx 9y ago
It is also partly because we are less inclined to lock up, beat or detain people who violate social norms in western countries anymore. Neither do we socially support those properly, turns out running mental health and substance abuse support is difficult, politically charged, full of potential for liability, thankless and expensive. I have older relatives who were involved in the mental health system in the 50's and 60's, it was, to put it mildly, not a particularly humane time but "it sure got crazies off the streets". On a related note, in .jp the police can detain you for about a month without charging you.
- ausvisaissues 9y ago
  Japan has a backwards view of mental health, and one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Yet public places are immaculately clean. The fact is that western people and law enforcement tolerate vandalism, littering and antisocial behaviour. Recently, on Seattle's airport train, I saw a person openly taking garbage out of their bag and throwing it on the floor. No one said anything - just another day on the dirty train. I don't think someone would dare do that in Japan or Singapore.
  - dba7dba 9y ago
    US has had a good grasp on mental health and it's not stigmatized as much as it is in Japan. But guess what, US has highest death rate from illegal/dangerous drugs, which to me is almost like suicide.
eesmith 9y ago
A "public bath" isn't the same as a "public place", which has a wide range of meanings. Think of it as "open to the public", similar to how a pub="public house" even though it's privately owned and people can be kicked out. A public bath has an entrance fee and staff, including cleaning staff. While a train station doesn't have an entrance fee, even to access the elevator. The streets are even more "public", in that speech like preaching has very few restraints. But a public bath has no obligation to allow yelling and preaching. One of the ways people do public baths in the US is to join a gym. Another option is to go to a spa. Those two provide most of the market need for a public bath. Other cultures also integrate a social experience in the public bath, but that is coupled to historical reasons not related to your objection.
lr4444lr 9y ago
This U.S. resident agrees with you. It's a definite downside to our individualist priorities and inability of law enforcement to do much about public nuisances.
- Pulcinella 9y ago
  There is also a huge emphasis on being a "taxpayer." "I paid taxes this year, therefor I am entitled to do whatever I want with public property." It's one of the reasons something like the autobahn can't work in the US. Some Americans just love to drive 20 mph under the speed limit in the left lane because "I'm a taxpayer and this is my road! I can do what I want." A no-speed-limit highway in the US would require one lane per citizen.
  - pm90 9y ago
    Honestly, I've never seen this kind of belligerence. I mean, I understand that the feeling exists that since one paid taxes, one is more entitled to public services than those who don't (and vice versa). But Americans in general seem to be very law-abiding citizens (there are exceptions, as is everywhere).
  - yardie 9y ago
    Recently, I've seen signs attaching fines to driving in the left lane below the speed limit or not allowing a car to pass. There are still drivers that stay below but I think with the new signs they are becoming a smaller subset. This was in South Florida btw.
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    >A no-speed-limit highway in the US would require one lane per citizen. No, it would just require speeding tickets to be less lucrative than impeding traffic tickets.
- rayvd 9y ago
  Of all things to spend tax dollars on, public baths seems pretty far down the priority list.
escapetech 9y ago
It's not only in cities. In the USA, public facilities outside of exclusive areas are usually associated with those considered poor and personal failures. Combined with the resentment that most people have towards subsidizing public facilities and services used by/built for those who need them (even though in the USA, it's a fraction of what's used towards foreign interventions), there's little if any incentive in maintaining, let alone building more public/publicly used places, especially ones that will end up being used exclusively by the people they want nothing do with (who often internalize this open resentment and further contribute to the problem of poor quality public facilities).
- rayiner 9y ago
  Do you have any data that would suggest that funding limitations are the problem? Because when it comes to other sorts of public services (schools, transit) we spend more than other countries. To get worse results. I ran the numbers the other day, and for example the NYC MTA spends about twice as much per ride as the London Tube.
- opportune 9y ago
  I highly doubt the causation goes in this direction. I think it's just a matter of culture. People in the US litter way more than people do in Japan, for example. I agree with the other poster that it's really just a small minority, maybe even less than 1%, of Americans that just ruin public facilities for everyone. But this minority does exist. You could argue that we are just using coded language for homeless people, which often is more of a combination of mental illness or substance abuse problems and abject poverty. But I think there are plenty of people that ruin public services aside from the homeless. Even as a lifeguard of private pools, I've had to deal with large amounts of litter, abandoned trash, and feces/urine on regular bases.
  - escapetech 9y ago
    Certainly while there are cultural aspects at play, it's impossible to ignore the reality of certain areas in America being cleaner and less littered, and better serviced than other areas, and a large part of that has to do with the money available for people who inhabit and regularly use those spaces/facilities, and the ability to keep away certain demographics in order for the money to continue to be available.
Camillo 9y ago
Public baths in Japan also typically ban guests with tattoos, because tattoos are associated with the Yakuza in Japanese culture, and the presence of Yakuza would make other guests uncomfortable. Imagine doing anything even remotely similar in the US. OTOH, the US does have public pools. I've never been to one, though, so I have no idea what they are like. If anyone has experiences, please share.
- alistairSH 9y ago
  Public pools are generally fine. They usually have a small fee to use, so they aren't truly public in the same sense as the local playground. In my area, most pools are county or town operated, with a discount rate for residents and a higher rate for non-residents. Usually, $5-$10/visit for non-residents, which also buys access to the locker room/showers and any gym equipment. I imagine the public baths in Japan are similar. So, there is an entry fee that funds a small staff to keep the bathhouse in good repair. Edit - as an aside, I visited Iceland in January. The public baths/pools were amazing. The entry fees were minimal (a few euro, a bit less than entry to a pool in the US). Facilities were all clean and well maintained. But, it's also part of their culture. Like bath-houses in some nations, people go to the pools to hang out and socialize in the evening.
- ausvisaissues 9y ago
  Japan has public pools (run by wards) and they are lovely. The only minor complaint is that sometimes they are overrun with old people ;)
- pm90 9y ago
  There are many public pools in Austin (some charge a small access fee) and they are wildly popular. e.g. Barton Springs Pool, Hamilton Pool etc.
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
> There's urine in the train stations (either visible or smellable), elevators shut down by faeces, people shouting, yelling and preaching in the streets, also, toilets, often even in private restaurants, are disgusting. This is a very SF-centric view of the US. The closest I've come to this in Boston is seeing people sleeping on subway benches. >I can kind of see it working in smaller US communities Communities that small do not need laundromats. Cities and suburbs have done a very good job making themselves so impersonal that you don't really get that level of community except in actual "small" towns.
- iamatworknow 9y ago
  >This is a very SF-centric view of the US. Not really. Every major American (and in my experience, Canadian, though it is slightly better up there) city has this to varying degrees.
- booleandilemma 9y ago
  I thought it described NYC quite accurately. Take a tour of the subway and you'll agree. Urine, feces, and homeless people, oftentimes who are mentally disturbed, are part of my commute.
erikpukinskis 9y ago
"Americans are more likely to pee in the pool than Japanese"... I would love to see that study! I have my own racist hypothesis about the outcome, but yours seems quite rational to me too.
pm90 9y ago
I'm sure racism also plays into this a lot. So public baths are very common in Korea as well, which is a pretty homogeneous country (similar to Japan). Like you mention, Urban areas in most of the US tend to be overrun by poor and downtrodden and are generally unsanitary. But my personal experience, of having seen gentrification here in Austin, Texas, has been that Urban areas in America are maintained well when those areas are out of the reach of said poor and downtrodden. e.g. in Austin, the downtown region is infested with homeless people and panhandlers, whereas the new development in north austin (called the Domain) is much much cleaner. So I don't think Americans in general are prone to littering or keeping urban areas dirty.
XaspR8d 9y ago
> There's urine in the train stations (either visible or smellable), elevators shut down by faeces, people shouting, yelling and preaching in the streets I'm not reacting to any offense, as I agree the US has these problems. However this also describes very well my time spent in metropolitan Spain, France, and Italy.
- grillvogel 9y ago
  maybe there's a common thread here...

greggman 9y ago

Agreed but this isn't just a USA thing. Many countries have a culture not taking care of public places. All of Europe comes to mind. As does China.

dijit 9y ago
Europe is a broad stroke. UK, sure, Sweden.. not so much.
- Symbiote 9y ago
  Sweden and the UK seem roughly the same to me. The main streets of large cities are perhaps a bit dirtier in England, but the parks in Sweden are far worse when people leave all their trash for the bottle collector (not just the bottles).
  - dijit 9y ago
    As a person who grew up in Britain and now live in Sweden in cities with a comparable population size, I disagree. London is an exception when it comes to the UK, there is a lot more investment in public services and it's not a true representation of Britain due to its multicultural component.
    - laurencerowe 9y ago
      Sure, London has a level of investment in public services which is unrepresentative of Britain as a whole (though they also pay most of the taxes that fund public services.) But all big cities (and many small ones) are multicultural.
      - dijit 9y ago
        that's a stupid point to make. London is more multicultural than the rest of Britain. even if you count the duo-culture the rest of britain has (Pakistani is usually what people refer to when defining "multi-cultural" in the greater context of the UK) then London is still absolutely outclassing everything else by an amazingly wide margin in terms of multi-culturalism. You could argue the Polish influx has created a tri-culture, but really, I lived in London and my neighbors were Russian, Estonian, Finnish, Canadian, South African, Eritrean, Saudi, Indian, Danish, Italian, Brazillian and there was even a girl from Zimbabwe. Nothing like where I came from.. That's a true multi-culture. Regardless, as a person having lived in 2 comparable places in different countries I see a huge difference in the way public spaces are treated (to the benefit of Sweden). I don't doubt that the parent has similar experiences as I wasn't saying it's uncommon. But I have this opinion having actual experience. If you do not have similar experience you are not an authority to tell me how things are. I'm not sure what point you were even trying to make, that Britain has more than just British culture therefore my argument has no ground? :S
- peteretep 9y ago
  Plenty of public pools in the UK that are in pretty good condition.
danans 9y ago
Not certain how you can describe all of Europe that way. In my experience, European countries have very good upkeep of public spaces even by higher developed world standards, and especially compared to the US.
skrebbel 9y ago
As a Dutch chauvinist, I beg to differ. We generally take excellent care of public places. This is a combo of culture and government services actually cleaning stuff up every once in a while. Of course, this is HN, so cue some replies about horrible stinky places in the Netherlands, but as a general rule I stand by this. SF is a pile of poo compared to an average Dutch city. And then I haven't even mentioned Luxembourg. That entire country is so clean and tidy that it almost looks like a cartoon.
- DrScump 9y ago
  SF is a pile of poo compared to an average Dutch city. SF is a pile of poo compared to an average American city, too.
  - skrebbel 9y ago
    Ah right, thanks. I didn't know that :)
    - pbarnes_1 9y ago
      It's not true, though. SF is pretty much average in this regard. Americans in general just don't seem to care about public spaces, pretty much anywhere in the country. I've travelled to many US cities and the only reason other cities some how feel "cleaner" is because there's literally nobody walking in them. The cities made for walking (like NYC and maybe Boston) are on par with SF. Maybe less dog poo everywhere though.
      - ihaveajob 9y ago
        This reminds me of my earlier experiences walking around LA. My natural instinct looking at the state of disarray in some of the streets was that I was on the wrong side of town, because where I come from (Granada, Spain) that's what you notice when you venture into the slummy areas. In LA, however, you need to readjust your gauge, as this was a fairly safe area, just not well taken care of.
      - 9y ago
Veratyr 9y ago
There are other places yes but out of the countries I've visited, the US is definitely one of the worst. All the Europe I've visited (Paris, Berlin, Zurich, Istanbul, south-eastern region of Russia) has been about as well kept as Australia, my home country. Aside from Malaysia, I can't think of a country that's worse than the US. Even the (disclaimer: nicer, less impoverished) parts of Mexico I've visited were arguably better maintained. Another disclaimer: I live in the Bay Area and that's where most (but not all) of my feelings about US public spaces come from.
- dtech 9y ago
  It might be the large US population of homeless people worsens this (especially in the bay area), as they have no better option than to leave their waste in public places.
  - Symbiote 9y ago
    That's still the US's problem to fix though. Other countries provide public toilets. With a quick search, I can only find maps for the London Underground and Britain generally: [1] http://content.tfl.gov.uk/toilets-map.pdf http://content.tfl.gov.uk/toilets-map.pdf [2] https://greatbritishpublictoiletmap.rca.ac.uk/ https://greatbritishpublictoiletmap.rca.ac.uk/ (many semi-public also listed)
  - legulere 9y ago
    At least according to Wikipedia, many European countries have a higher homeless rate than the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_...
    - ihaveajob 9y ago
      The US is a big place, which averages away the extremes. In San Francisco, population 868k, there are about 10-12k homeless folks (http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/San-Francisco-homelessness-by-the-numbers-10767735.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/San-Francisco-homeless...), which puts it at over 1% homelessness. That's a tragic number for such a wealthy city.
rconti 9y ago
I'm not sure about littering/pissing/etc, but as an American, I'm constantly surprised by the amount of graffiti when I go to Europe. It far outstrips what I see here. As a Californian, of course, they have far fewer homeless people there :)

zxcmx 9y ago

It is also partly because we are less inclined to lock up, beat or detain people who violate social norms in western countries anymore. Neither do we socially support those properly, turns out running mental health and substance abuse support is difficult, politically charged, full of potential for liability, thankless and expensive. I have older relatives who were involved in the mental health system in the 50's and 60's, it was, to put it mildly, not a particularly humane time but "it sure got crazies off the streets". On a related note, in .jp the police can detain you for about a month without charging you.

ausvisaissues 9y ago
Japan has a backwards view of mental health, and one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Yet public places are immaculately clean. The fact is that western people and law enforcement tolerate vandalism, littering and antisocial behaviour. Recently, on Seattle's airport train, I saw a person openly taking garbage out of their bag and throwing it on the floor. No one said anything - just another day on the dirty train. I don't think someone would dare do that in Japan or Singapore.
- dba7dba 9y ago
  US has had a good grasp on mental health and it's not stigmatized as much as it is in Japan. But guess what, US has highest death rate from illegal/dangerous drugs, which to me is almost like suicide.

eesmith 9y ago

A "public bath" isn't the same as a "public place", which has a wide range of meanings. Think of it as "open to the public", similar to how a pub="public house" even though it's privately owned and people can be kicked out. A public bath has an entrance fee and staff, including cleaning staff. While a train station doesn't have an entrance fee, even to access the elevator. The streets are even more "public", in that speech like preaching has very few restraints. But a public bath has no obligation to allow yelling and preaching. One of the ways people do public baths in the US is to join a gym. Another option is to go to a spa. Those two provide most of the market need for a public bath. Other cultures also integrate a social experience in the public bath, but that is coupled to historical reasons not related to your objection.

lr4444lr 9y ago

This U.S. resident agrees with you. It's a definite downside to our individualist priorities and inability of law enforcement to do much about public nuisances.

Pulcinella 9y ago
There is also a huge emphasis on being a "taxpayer." "I paid taxes this year, therefor I am entitled to do whatever I want with public property." It's one of the reasons something like the autobahn can't work in the US. Some Americans just love to drive 20 mph under the speed limit in the left lane because "I'm a taxpayer and this is my road! I can do what I want." A no-speed-limit highway in the US would require one lane per citizen.
- pm90 9y ago
  Honestly, I've never seen this kind of belligerence. I mean, I understand that the feeling exists that since one paid taxes, one is more entitled to public services than those who don't (and vice versa). But Americans in general seem to be very law-abiding citizens (there are exceptions, as is everywhere).
- yardie 9y ago
  Recently, I've seen signs attaching fines to driving in the left lane below the speed limit or not allowing a car to pass. There are still drivers that stay below but I think with the new signs they are becoming a smaller subset. This was in South Florida btw.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  >A no-speed-limit highway in the US would require one lane per citizen. No, it would just require speeding tickets to be less lucrative than impeding traffic tickets.
rayvd 9y ago
Of all things to spend tax dollars on, public baths seems pretty far down the priority list.

escapetech 9y ago

It's not only in cities. In the USA, public facilities outside of exclusive areas are usually associated with those considered poor and personal failures. Combined with the resentment that most people have towards subsidizing public facilities and services used by/built for those who need them (even though in the USA, it's a fraction of what's used towards foreign interventions), there's little if any incentive in maintaining, let alone building more public/publicly used places, especially ones that will end up being used exclusively by the people they want nothing do with (who often internalize this open resentment and further contribute to the problem of poor quality public facilities).

rayiner 9y ago
Do you have any data that would suggest that funding limitations are the problem? Because when it comes to other sorts of public services (schools, transit) we spend more than other countries. To get worse results. I ran the numbers the other day, and for example the NYC MTA spends about twice as much per ride as the London Tube.
opportune 9y ago
I highly doubt the causation goes in this direction. I think it's just a matter of culture. People in the US litter way more than people do in Japan, for example. I agree with the other poster that it's really just a small minority, maybe even less than 1%, of Americans that just ruin public facilities for everyone. But this minority does exist. You could argue that we are just using coded language for homeless people, which often is more of a combination of mental illness or substance abuse problems and abject poverty. But I think there are plenty of people that ruin public services aside from the homeless. Even as a lifeguard of private pools, I've had to deal with large amounts of litter, abandoned trash, and feces/urine on regular bases.
- escapetech 9y ago
  Certainly while there are cultural aspects at play, it's impossible to ignore the reality of certain areas in America being cleaner and less littered, and better serviced than other areas, and a large part of that has to do with the money available for people who inhabit and regularly use those spaces/facilities, and the ability to keep away certain demographics in order for the money to continue to be available.

Camillo 9y ago

Public baths in Japan also typically ban guests with tattoos, because tattoos are associated with the Yakuza in Japanese culture, and the presence of Yakuza would make other guests uncomfortable. Imagine doing anything even remotely similar in the US. OTOH, the US does have public pools. I've never been to one, though, so I have no idea what they are like. If anyone has experiences, please share.

alistairSH 9y ago
Public pools are generally fine. They usually have a small fee to use, so they aren't truly public in the same sense as the local playground. In my area, most pools are county or town operated, with a discount rate for residents and a higher rate for non-residents. Usually, $5-$10/visit for non-residents, which also buys access to the locker room/showers and any gym equipment. I imagine the public baths in Japan are similar. So, there is an entry fee that funds a small staff to keep the bathhouse in good repair. Edit - as an aside, I visited Iceland in January. The public baths/pools were amazing. The entry fees were minimal (a few euro, a bit less than entry to a pool in the US). Facilities were all clean and well maintained. But, it's also part of their culture. Like bath-houses in some nations, people go to the pools to hang out and socialize in the evening.
ausvisaissues 9y ago
Japan has public pools (run by wards) and they are lovely. The only minor complaint is that sometimes they are overrun with old people ;)
pm90 9y ago
There are many public pools in Austin (some charge a small access fee) and they are wildly popular. e.g. Barton Springs Pool, Hamilton Pool etc.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago

> There's urine in the train stations (either visible or smellable), elevators shut down by faeces, people shouting, yelling and preaching in the streets, also, toilets, often even in private restaurants, are disgusting. This is a very SF-centric view of the US. The closest I've come to this in Boston is seeing people sleeping on subway benches. >I can kind of see it working in smaller US communities Communities that small do not need laundromats. Cities and suburbs have done a very good job making themselves so impersonal that you don't really get that level of community except in actual "small" towns.

iamatworknow 9y ago
>This is a very SF-centric view of the US. Not really. Every major American (and in my experience, Canadian, though it is slightly better up there) city has this to varying degrees.
booleandilemma 9y ago
I thought it described NYC quite accurately. Take a tour of the subway and you'll agree. Urine, feces, and homeless people, oftentimes who are mentally disturbed, are part of my commute.

erikpukinskis 9y ago

"Americans are more likely to pee in the pool than Japanese"... I would love to see that study! I have my own racist hypothesis about the outcome, but yours seems quite rational to me too.

pm90 9y ago

I'm sure racism also plays into this a lot. So public baths are very common in Korea as well, which is a pretty homogeneous country (similar to Japan). Like you mention, Urban areas in most of the US tend to be overrun by poor and downtrodden and are generally unsanitary. But my personal experience, of having seen gentrification here in Austin, Texas, has been that Urban areas in America are maintained well when those areas are out of the reach of said poor and downtrodden. e.g. in Austin, the downtown region is infested with homeless people and panhandlers, whereas the new development in north austin (called the Domain) is much much cleaner. So I don't think Americans in general are prone to littering or keeping urban areas dirty.

XaspR8d 9y ago

> There's urine in the train stations (either visible or smellable), elevators shut down by faeces, people shouting, yelling and preaching in the streets I'm not reacting to any offense, as I agree the US has these problems. However this also describes very well my time spent in metropolitan Spain, France, and Italy.

grillvogel 9y ago
maybe there's a common thread here...