The city has started to roll out public sanettes. Like a stripped down version of what you would find in Paris. I'm hoping they deploy more of them, quickly. They are useful to everyone.
A person in the right mind does not shit in the middle of a street or sidewalk, they'll shit in an alley or something. Or over a storm drain.
It's not like it's tourists urinating in public because there are so few public bathrooms.
We have mental people here too. (And homeless mental people, it's not like all of Europe is some social democratic paradise.)
I think the root cause in SF is the crisis of homelessness which seems massive compared to what I have seen elsewhere.
"People are taught to hold it back in until they get to a bathroom..."
For these people, there isn't one.
> Step 3: Now everyone begins shitting in the street because public bathrooms are no longer available. And those people shooting up in the bathrooms are also shooting up on the street.
I am having difficulties following. How did you get from step 2 to step 3? Since when does lack of available public bathrooms lead to public defecation? Is this really a thing somewhere? I cannot wrap my mind around it. Are people really this incapable of controlling themselves? Do they just let it go wherever they are when they get the urge? Horrible. This is not really the case in the country where I am, so "everyone begins shitting in the street" certainly depends on where you are, what the culture is, and so on. It sounds really alien to me. We already do not have available public bathrooms in many areas, but public defecation is certainly not a thing. People are taught to hold it back in until they get to a bathroom...
Edit: we also have fecal collecting bag dispensers, which is basically a bin (+ bags) specifically for collecting feces, usually dog. They are emptied on a daily basis. Take a fecal collection bag, put your feces inside the bag, throw it away into the bin specifically designed for collecting feces. No bathroom required, and no feces on the streets!