"Some health officials speculate that one trigger of the outbreak might have been the state’s plastic bag ban, which went into effect in November. What had once been a practice of last resort — defecating in a plastic bag and tossing it in the trash — is no longer an option"
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/outbreak-waiting-happen-...
Maybe people living in abject conditions in the street and defecating in the open? Just a hunch.
New York doesn't have a public bathroom system per se, but government offices like libraries are extremely prevalent, and those will have public bathrooms. Some stores also have bathrooms that are more or less open to the public.
If removing plastic causes this sort of thing, then something critical has been ignored. It's probably best if the society faces that problem and deals with it.
If formal schooling is needed to educate children, something critical has been ignored. It's probably best if society faces that problem and deals with it.
If medication is needed to keep people healthy, something critical has been ignored. It's probably best if society faces that problem and deals with it.
There are no silver bullets, only bullets. Ignore them at your peril.
Platitudes are cheap.
Examine a statement to see if it's logic bears out before saying that it's impossible to approach safely.
Formal education is helpful in treating the root cause of the problem it's addressing, that of knowledge and skill.
Complaining disposable plastic bags are necessary for sanitation because of a large homeless society doesn't treat the root: Why are so many people homeless? (And yes, that problem is difficult and requires a multi-faceted approach... But plastic bags to pick up human shit isn't the solution.)
b) Restricting internal migration or treating people from certain places preferentially also violates most voters' intuitions about fairness.
If American democracy is to end homelessness, anyone must be able to move to New York/San Francisco and immediately obtain a home there that neither they nor anyone else pays for.
Holding out for this doesn't seem like a good plan.
The root cause was mentioned in the linked article:
"At the same time, the city was locking and removing bathrooms to help control the rampant drug and prostitution trade they’d spawned"
As was a more humane solution:
"Today, the tents are gone. There are clusters of newly installed portable toilets open and guarded 24 hours a day. More than 60 new hand-washing stations dot the city."
You think that unborn children should be required to legally own property before they are allowed to be delivered?
I've heard of "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" but this is a new level of absurdity.
Then no one will ever be homeless.
That's the only non-state solution that guarantees this outcome (well, barring major catastrophes that destroy the home and cause the insurance to not be effective at replacing it).
"Sorry, we can't get rid of plastic problem because that's actually how we address our public sanitation and homelessness problems."
Somehow the ones in Ann Arbor and Chicago don't seem to get such harsh treatment. I'm not sure why; maybe those cities just budget a lot more for maintenance.
Are people really asking themselves “what am I supposed to shit in now?”