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 :)

[–] snooggums@midwest.social 72 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Cities discourage benches because the homeless might use them and that would mean acknowledging the homeless exist.

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 18 points 8 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago

Send them a letter saying it would be nice for your old grandpa to sit on a bench and look at those dancing fountains.

[–] XTL@sopuli.xyz 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] wildcherry@slrpnk.net 5 points 8 months ago

And like any public property (like, say, roads), we have the mean to repair them.

[–] LesserAbe@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago

What costly maintenance do benches need?

[–] wildcherry@slrpnk.net 9 points 8 months ago

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".

[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 1 points 8 months ago

It's more that it makes the area unpleasant and even perhaps dangerous to others. Sucks but it is what it is