this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
798 points (97.7% liked)
Solarpunk
5492 readers
88 users here now
The space to discuss Solarpunk itself and Solarpunk related stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere.
Join our chat: Movim or XMPP client.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Benches are just so nice. The value-to-price proposition is amazing and I don't see why any city would disagree with this other than incompetence. I recently ordered a bench for a little public garden in my neighbourhood and plopped it there for 100usd. People love it :)
Cities discourage benches because the homeless might use them and that would mean acknowledging the homeless exist.
That's not always the case tho. Sometimes cities just forget benches exist. My town has no real homeless issues but still lacks of benches for some reason and the public parks team would rather spend the money on touristy shit like "dancing fountains" smh
Send them a letter saying it would be nice for your old grandpa to sit on a bench and look at those dancing fountains.
Also benches, like any public property, get vandalised, stolen and covered in bird and other droppings and need costly maintenance to keep in usable condition.
And like any public property (like, say, roads), we have the mean to repair them.
What costly maintenance do benches need?
They did that in my city. They build a whole station with zero benches because according to the asshole architect, "station are meant to board train, not to wait".
It's more that it makes the area unpleasant and even perhaps dangerous to others. Sucks but it is what it is