10 ms·

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 :)

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 :)