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.
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.
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).
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.
I was waiting for the subway, and this guy leaning against a trash can throws his trash on the ground. If I didnt see things like this nearly every day I would write it off as a one time occurrence.
"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.
No, it would just require speeding tickets to be less lucrative than impeding traffic tickets.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Not really. Every major American (and in my experience, Canadian, though it is slightly better up there) city has this to varying degrees.
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.
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.
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.
But guess what, US has highest death rate from illegal/dangerous drugs, which to me is almost like suicide.
And then I haven't even mentioned Luxembourg. That entire country is so clean and tidy that it almost looks like a cartoon.
Ok, I've gotta take issue with this.
Dutch people litter. All the time. People rarely seem to clean up after their dogs. People place their trash bags out on the curb (where there aren't underground bins) far earlier than they should, resulting in trash-strewn streets and fat, obnoxious seagulls. It's a mess. Beer cans left on bridges and park benches. Energy drink cans tossed to the side. Cigarette butts strewn carelessly. Firework refuse absolutely fucking everywhere a few weeks either side of New Years. Bikes left as litter.
There's always someone who comes along with a street vacuum, or a team of people going along with bags and pickers. It seems to me that people have little respect for not littering because it's always someone else's problem, and there's always going to be someone cleaning up after you.
So if by "we" take care of public spaces you mean "lots of people get paid to clean up others' carelessness," sure, but in six years I've seen little to suggest that not leaving trash just anywhere is strong tenent of Dutch culture.
My hunch is that urban areas of the NL are essentially all developed and man-made, in that every street, sidewalk, tree, bush, patch of grass is planned and raw, untouched nature is relatively less accessible and visible. Therefore people perceive this urban "fabrication" with its attendant cleaning staff as less precious, less worth keeping clean than some primeval forest or national park.
I could be wrong, of course, and this is all just my own perception. But I really fail to recognize the cultural cleanliness that you say embodies the Dutch.
SF is a pile of poo compared to an average Dutch city.
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.
Lol what? In Berlin you see heaps of trash, broken furniture and fridges on the sidewalks once you leave the main roads. The city stinks in the summer (guess this is due to not enough water in the sewage). In Neukölln (and other parts of the city) you gotta take care of druggies everywhere. Parts of the city have a severe neonazi problem (left-wing and "foreign looking" people are getting beaten up, and their cars torched). Rents are skyrocketing and the government doesn't care much except to fight those who protest against gentrification.
I don't get the Berlin hype. Really not.
St. Petersburg is much nicer than Paris (at least in the summer). Surprisingly, the it is cleaner even though the country is poorer.
As a Californian, of course, they have far fewer homeless people there :)
UK, sure, Sweden.. not so much.