Yeah, but yelling racial epithets when there is no one around to (see/hear/beat the shit out of) you is completely ineffectual. Peeing, not so much.
Also, kicking the shit out of someone on the street who peed on you stands the chance of getting you arrested for assault, since you’re pounding on someone who (legally) did nothing to harm you.
Exactly my response- why would people start peeing all over the place? Is this a burning desire in most people?
To answer the question- now if it was spitting…
Same here - sign me up! There’s enough loonies in San Francisco that have no grasp on reality and they’ll urinate wherever they are - on the streetcorner, in doorways, on the train… Truly wherever.
Seriously though, aside from the population figures, you’ve described San Francisco perfectly.
I used to live in New Orleans so it would be familiar territory and no problem. People are generally discrete about it. I grew up in the country and my philosophy is that, if cats and and dogs can pee where they want, I could too. Police horses do it as well and I have rarely seen them with leg cuffs on and there is some serious volume there.
I am actually a master of public urination. I was going to a job interview in downtown Boston once when I had to pee badly and I mean badly in my car. Something bad was going to happen within one minute and I couldn’t have that given the circumstances. Luckily, I had a 32 oz bottle of Gatorade with me. I emptied that out at a red light and let her rip right away while driving in city traffic. The bottle started out as red drink and ended up as lemonade but no one was keeping close track and it solved the problem.
I also peed once while walking down Commonwealth Ave. in Brighton. Walking while peeing is a learned art and no one can tell from a distance if you do it correctly. The biggest risk is peeing on your shoes. Peeing on buildings is trivial if you don’t want to get caught. An amateur mistake is to stand next to a wall with legs spread and arms at the 3 and 9 o’clock positions. For it to be successful, you need to avoid at least one of these signs. An effective strategy is to slyly grip your wiener with only one hand and do not extend your extend your arm in the telltale manner. Do anything else with your other hand like pretending to pick daisies or scratch the back of your head. If you do it correctly, you can pretend to work on something or study something and no one will know.
I think such a place would be a net gain for me although I don’t want to get peed on. However, judging by some internet sites I have stumbled across, people may kill to try and live there.
Too far from the mountains. Besides, I pee wherever I want to now.
So someone can pee on me and that’s not considered an assault that I can justifiably respond to? Sorry, that’s the dealbreaker for me.
Option 1. I used to live there-Wilmington, NC, which meets all the criteria and where the downtown area was revitalized by the establishment of dozens of bars catering to the college-and college-age hordes. The streets teemed with the denizens who, when the bars closed, used the alleys, flowerbeds, and store entryways as their pissoirs, to the chagrin of the owners. One developer even built an 8-story 40-50-unit masonry condo on the waterfront but could sell only to folks/parents of the nighttime denizens who used the units as, to quote the news reports, “puke pads”. They survived by leasing units to the nearby Hilton hotel for their overflow (no pun intended). No thank you.
Option 2. I’ve already been to several towns like that in in France. No thank you.
Option 3. I think I’ll piss, er, pass on it!
I guess you can justifiably respond by peeing back.
Sign me up. I doubt most people are interested in going on wild pee sprees, just because they can.
If somehow my person or property is compromised by a little unwanted pee, it sounds like I’m going to have all the resources I need for drycleaning, medical intervention, etc.
My only concern is who decides who gets to move to P-town? After all, there are a few people out there with urine fetishes who would delight in peeing liberally all over the place. If all of them are going to be living with me, I might change my mind.
I’d love to live in Paris again.
So you’ve been to the Port Authority Bus Terminal?
I loved Shagnasty’s account of pissing on Comm Ave. I once had to piss so bad, I actually wet myself. I was in Cambridge Common and it was before dusk… I wasn’t going to jail or getting a ticket over piss.
I also had to piss terribly driving on Sunset Boulevard from Silverlake to Hollywood. Luckily, there was a church right next to the big Scientology complex with a portapotty. I literally leaped out of the car with seconds to spare and thanked the church/Scienos for leaving the potty unlocked.
To answer the OP: I think so. Listen, farting is legal. People fart all the time, probably more than they pee. But it’s noteworthy when I hear or smell someone’s fart. I think there’s a built-in embarrassment we have as human beings about excretory functions, which generally means that most of us will try to do these things in private unless it’s an emergency. What I’m saying, I guess, is that there are generally two types of people: the types that will piss in public because they can, and those who won’t even if it’s legal to do so.
I’m not a big clubbing person so I wouldn’t be arsed one way or the other about the entertainment district, but if I was, that might be a deal-breaker.
This is Urinetown!
Always it’s been Urinetown!
This place, it’s called Urinetown!
Eh, I’ve smelled enough urine soaked homeless on the subways that if it smelled like that constantly I could never live there.
In Cameroon men can pretty much pee anywhere. There are even streets in my town where it’s okay to squat down on the side of the road and take a dump. Public restroom facilities (pit latrines) are often in bad shape, so peeing someplace else is often neccessary.
It’s not too bad. Most people choose reasonable places to pee- trash piles, weedy patches, etc.
Occasional piss anywhere, no problem, just the same as what every urban and rural dweller deals with now (that is, pretty much everyone). Otherwise, for public more-than-occasional locations, I could see the city leadership taking some kind of steps for after-the-fact treatment. Crews with pressure washers or something. Under the peculiar circumstances of the town, I could see them putting up some kind of can’t-miss-it public restroom, conscentiously well maintained. Wait a second, let’s remember human nature… charge tourists a buck to use the official piss spot of the town of Pisspot. It could work.
And we’re living here in Urinetown
Where everyone just fuckin’ pees on the ground
And the cleaner people ran awaaaay
Every child has a pretty good shot
To use at least a damn chamber pot
But something happened on the way to that place
Some dude just up and pissed in my face!
Considering my job has completely numbed me of working with all forms of biohazardous body fluids and waste, pee really doesn’t bother me all that much.
Okay, well, there is one form of body fluid that that still makes me blech.
Semen. The smell of some other dude’s semen still grosses me out.
I/O error - (A)bort, ®etry, (F)ail?
“clean air” doesn’t match with “people can pee anywhere”.
Since things are going to get cleaned, and given that actually a big reason people don’t pee anywhere is social and personal mores, rather than whatever the law says, yes I’d move in.
I reserve the right to bitchslap anybody who pees on me or who pees in my house but not in the toilet, though. The founder of the city can regulate where people pee so long as it doesn’t infringe on my right to bitchslap anybody peeing on me and my stuff.
I only have one question - does R. Kelly live there?
If not, I’m OK with living there - I trust most people not to actually piss in public if they don’t have to.
Ah yes, should have clarified…by “clean air” I basically meant “smog-free”. Little in the way of big-city and industrial pollution, (potentially) plenty in the way of the refreshing scent of ammonia in the morning.
I know you were joking about the R. Kelly thing, but it’s something to consider…people aren’t barred from moving to this city of their own volition, so the sort of people who might be inclined to whiz in exciting new places are now more likely to become your neighbors.
When considering this question, I looked less at the “peeing in public” aspect of it – as has been said, societal pressure is going to keep most would-be daytime street-pissers at bay – and more what could be done in the cover of night or behind closed doors. I can guarantee you, for example, that the customer service floor of the call center where I used to work would have been nigh-perpetually piss-soaked from disgruntled employees…and I shudder to think of what could have happened in the restaurants where I worked before that.
Remember, the city only cleans the outside of buildings. How much are YOUR employers willing to spend on carpet cleaning bills?