I started this thread, and to prove my point, today the NYT published this article about the closing of Seattles free toilets.

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The article begins, "After spending $5 million on its five automated public toilets, Seattle is calling it quits. In the end, the restrooms, installed in early 2004, had become so filthy, so overrun with drug abusers and prostitutes, that although use was free of charge, even some of the city’s most destitute people refused to step inside them."