17 July 2008

When social engineering goes wrong

The crack-whores start to balk... you know it's really time to call it a day.
-- SEATTLE -- 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.

“I’m not going to lie: I used to smoke crack in there,” said one homeless woman, Veronyka Cordner, nodding toward the toilet behind Pike Place Market. “But I won’t even go inside that thing now."

"It’s disgusting.”
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RELATED: Here we go again

You wanna poison yourself and die, that's your choice... but c'mon... a human rights complaint?
In particular, the groups complain the guards order people sitting or laying on the sidewalk to move and try to prevent people from looking for recyclables in dumpsters.
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