In Japan public toilets are ubiquitous, free, and fairly clean. I wonder how they do it? Is it because Japanese people generally take better care of public spaces and keeping the toilets clean and operational is thus cheaper?
Before the privatization attempts, the Deutsche Bahn used real announcers on the major train stations.
Now, after decades of cost-cutting, it's pre-recorded audio pieces played by a computer. They sound broken and mismatching (because it's no TTS engine), they fail to be played half the time (and frequent rail users would claim the failure rate at 90%+) and of course the stuff breaks down when something unexpected happens (like emergency rail closures, due to people on the rails, med emergencies, police action, ...).
But on a station it is possible to only put people in front of the mike who speak accent-free German and English, and to properly adjust and maintain the amps, speakers and wiring.
But also, I disagree with the failure rate of 90+%, from my experience I'd say it works pretty well in 90+% of the time. The system can even announce the "umgekehrte Wagenreihung" ;)
The pronunciation of city names is also rather lacking in many instances, and like you say often doesn't match the surrounding speech.
"The nineteen fifty two ... Southern service to ... Brighton ... is delayed by approximately ... twelve ... minutes due to ... trespassers-on-the-railway. Please listen for further announcements. We apologize for the inconvenience."
(Replace with "a passenger taken ill on a train" or "action by the police".)
"The train approaching platform ... two ... is the ... delayed ... nineteen fifty-two ... Southern ... service to ... Brighton ... calling at ... Clapham Junction, East Croydon, Gatwick Airport, Haywards Heath and Brighton. This train has ... twelve ... coaches. Platform ... two ... for the nineteen fifty-two service to ... Brighton."
I much prefer it to a live announcement. The slightly ... odd pauses are distinctive, but mean derivations from the usual announcement stand out, whilst the whole thing is soporific for commuters. For others, there's the much-needed repetition of the most important bits; the destination of the train is spoken three times.
Examples: https://youtu.be/0cg-n-GF38E?t=139 (At 3:20 there's a Welsh one!)
(I don't like the repeated keep-your-luggage announcements, but maybe they're justified since people are still trying to bomb railways with abandoned luggage.)
Aren't these people are voluntary doing this work?
Summing up, my conclusion is the opposite of yours - those jobs would probably exist in pure capitalism.
For instance, until recently ir was unusual for a person to have more than one employer in their lifetime. You entered the workforce just after high school or college and stayed with that employer for the rest of your career. People didn't quit and get a different job. And employers didn't fire people.
The elderly person standing in front of the construction fence warning people to be careful because of the danger used to be construction worker. Maybe they worked their way up in the company until they bumped into the Peter principle or until they physically or mentally couldn't do the job. Then then moved over, around, and down as their abilities declined. The folks who made it high enough to earn a retirement retire. The folks who didn't build a nest egg or spent their egg on Grandma's hospice care, or whatever, depend on the company to keep them in the mail room or sweeping the front lobby or something that will pay the rent and buy groceries.
I have seen many US companies that created Mission Statements and formalized a list of Corporate Values that included Loyalty. But I have seen very few US companies that are loyal to their employees. I suppose there are a lot of ways to be disloyal, but Japanese companies have generally been loyal in maintaining some level of employment to even the least competent of their employees.
http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/
Such laws subsidize automation research. As I think this research is undersupplied by a market with access to cheap labour, I'm all for them.
I mean, sure, I'll do whatever if it keeps me and mine alive; but if I'm gonna starve either way, I'm gonna starve hanging out in the sun reading a book.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/business/global/layoffs...
It's not because Japanese people are cleaner in public toilets - I have seen enough "dirty" toilets in Japan to convince me that it's not the key factor. The secret is simply very frequent cleaning - in some toilets you'll see a list with stamps showing when the cleaning lady came during the day, and it can be as frequent as every hour.
I'm all for it. Having no free public toilets is just another reason not to go out or to feel annoyed staying out for too long. In Japan since this is free people can shop for longer and spend more time in public places and I am pretty sure this kind of factor has a positive effect on consumption, which is why malls and areas with large concentration of shops usually have the cleanest toilets.
In Germany, in many places, you've got paid public toilets - usually a few cents per use - but there will be a cleaning lady cleaning every few minutes.
Just another rewording of:
In (rich, homogenous country X) they managed to organize (nice, progressive social program Y) and had good success. I wonder how they do it ?
It's easy to pay for your neighbor to have free health care when his name is also Lars Larson. It's easy to fund public initiatives when the end users are also named Asahi Ito, just like you.
For example Australia is just as multicultural as the US, has a good public health system, and public toilets are clean and ubiquitous. Maybe not quite as clean as Japanese toilets, but far cleaner than what you'd find in San Francisco.
IMO disrespect to public spaces arises from apathy (India/China are good examples), social tensions and abstractions (government taxes/responsibility).
While I don't think racial homogeneity is apart of it, cultural compatibility absolutely is. It's mostly co-incidence that differing racial groups carry differing culture baggage. As any race can adopt kinder cultural values and principals.
Cheap labor is possibly relevant. Salaries and the cost of living are dramatically lower in Malaysia so apparently large numbers of Malaysians work in Singapore, often illegally, while essentially commuting from Malaysia.
Having a large pool of cheap possibly undocumented labor would certainly seem to make getting repetitive unskilled tasks done easier and cheaper.
And yes, small failures like that seriously annoy me because they leave the bathroom looking dirtier than when they came in.
(Or those people who do not flush properly - don't get me started on them...)
I can appreciate it's a difficult problem, but we have the means to change the design of the bowl itself and many other aspects. While there are self-cleaning pods in parks, I've never seen the approach taken to internal toilets.
Melbourne even has toilets in train stations!