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Comment by kjeetgill | Hacker News Reader

> 52 percent of Zurich citizens voted in favor of the government setting aside $2 million to build drive-in structures, which are referred to as “sex boxes,” in a discreet area.

Interesting. Knowing nothing about Switzerland, I'm curious why some private business didn't jump in and do it themselves.

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> To operate the facilities each year, $800,000 is set aside for security and on-site social services.

I don't think you can trust a private company whose main goal is to make a profit to make social services and minimising negative effects for the area a priority.

Indeed. A private company can make money from negative effects equally as well as positive. They prove it by doing so all the time, everywhere, since forever.

And whatever effort private companies DO put into inhibiting negative effects, some part of that is only due to the competition from the public option which has no other incentive at all.

The locals want to hide prostitution and roll-back the "red light" districts. Already, prostitution is illegal in some areas of Zurich and prostitutes are required to have licenses. The move is to hide prostitution from being out in the open, something so-called "private-public partnerships" would be unlikely to accomplish. It would need local knowledge to explain if this is pretext for prohibition or a legitimate accommodation.

There are plenty of sex work concepts in Switzerland. The German countries cater to carnal desires very efficiently.

In this case this is just direct representation in action. Zurich folks wanted sex boxes and voted in sex boxes. Its just the low budget version of the elaborate accommodations that the private sector already offers.

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