The Great Unsolved Mystery

In my last (first) blog, I considered the question of public toilets and privilege.  I argued that because lack of access to accessible and adequate public toilets has implications for quality of life and dignity, the ability to go when you need to go should be judged a civil right, thus unrelated to how much is in your pocket (or how much you value a pee).  Consequently, the public sector has a moral obligation to be the first-line provider of public toilets, with private sector establishments providing only ancillary provision. 

In this blog, I was going to say more on the issue of public versus private sector toilet provision.  Instead, I want to begin this blog with the following addendum to my argument about public toilets and privilege: while my argument is theoretically persuasive (and I hold to it), my recommendation—that the public sector assume first-line provision of public toilets—is extremely challenging to put into practice.  Here’s why: several barriers, including hypocritical planning policies, double standards from the community, interest group politicking, political risk, siting challenges, cost, and, most critically, public censure, have produced a lack of planning and policy formation in North American cities with regards to public toilet provision. 

Given these numerous barriers, it is no surprise that public toilets are not a familiar feature of the urban landscape.  However, it is not only (or even) the quantity of barriers that has thwarted public toilet provision.  The most important barrier to public toilet provision is that the issues involved are morally and politically loaded, exceptionally complex, and inextricably intertwined: public toilet provision is a wicked problem.  Yet, all of these issues are necessary to deal with if public toilet provision is elevated from a marginalized social concern to a matter of socio-political importance and, hence, actively addressed by government.

So, bit by bit, I will explore and chronicle the story of public toilet provision in the contemporary (North American) city.  I will consider the history of public toilet provision, examine the convoluted present-day context, and contemplate the future of public toilet provision in urban North America.  I also will look at public toilet provision in cities worldwide.  I will try to put public toilets into perspective.  And I will start with a pithy quote:

The trail of lime trees outside our building is still a public loo . . . where else are they supposed to go to the toilet in a city where public toilets are about as common as UFO sightings?  Sarah Turnbull, “Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris” (cited in http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/toilet)