Noah Sager - Geographer at Large
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Studying Public Restroom Access: An Introduction

10/28/2012

3 Comments

 
Picture
(image modified from: 
http://evaninchicago.blogspot.com/2010/07/its-little-things.html)

Of the ubiquitous public assets that people have come to expect to find in public spaces, including water fountains, pay phones, trash cans and restrooms, public restrooms are the asset with the fewest alternative options. While the use of water bottles and mobile phones has become more commonplace, there is seemingly no adequate proxy for a restroom.

In a public restroom, we are reminded not only of how much we depend on public spaces and the assets found there, but also of the people we share those places with. This brings up the first question this study will address: where are the public restrooms, and how does one find them? For example, one of the nicest things to have while driving cross-country is a Wal-Mart brand US Atlas. Not only does it have all the major roads in every state and convenient tables of distances between key cities, it also has the location of every Wal-Mart along the way, which is great for on-the-go oil changes, last minute shopping, and restrooms. Wal-Marts consistently have usable, public restrooms in highly visible (easy to find) locations.  While on the road, away from home, and one needs to go, there is no higher comfort in knowing exactly where one can find exactly what one needs. This study will address the first question by creating accurate, first-hand verified toilet maps for downtown Chicago.


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Conferences and Restrooms

10/2/2012

1 Comment

 
Picture
(image: Hilton Chicago Hotel)


As a graduate student interested in both advancing my education and finding a job to pay for my education, I tend to go to a lot of conferences. Or rather, I go to as many conferences as my school will provide funding for (thanks US Education grants!). The terms are pretty straightforward; if I present my research, and the conference is based in the USA, then they’ll fund me. This is really an awesome and generous gift, and I feel well lucky to have these opportunities. Sometimes, of course, I will not receive funding, and that’s when I get to put those student loan dollars to work.

Due to the nature of my primary research, public restrooms, I get a kick out of asking restroom questions related to session talks. This catches most people off-guard, because, who asks about restrooms when discussing retail store development and planning? I did just this at the recent ICSC Research Connections Conference in Chicago. The response to my question was a simple: “No, we don’t consider restrooms in our planning process”, which was pretty much what I expected. I could have phrased the question better, but I achieved my goal of asking a question (with a microphone) in a large panel session, and getting noticed. Now I’m not one for high-power, fast-talking networking situations, but I do make an effort. This later led to conversations with other people who were curious/interested in my work. While this may not lead to a job, at least I’m putting myself out there and practicing describing (and defending) public restroom research. I’m also putting the idea in people’s minds that restrooms are both important and under-valued. People need to talk about this, by golly.

All this brings me to my next restroom and conference related point, and that is women’s restrooms. I came across a startling blog by a young woman who attend a programming conference in St Louis, and discovered, much to her horror, that the female restrooms had been converted to male restrooms, and the far-away family restroom (a single-occupant type place) had been converted to the female restroom. The rationale was that there are so many more men than women at these sorts of conferences, or perhaps at this conference in particular, that someone decided this was an OK idea. As far as I understand, there was no discussion with the conference attendees, no notice in the program, no memo, no fax, it just happened. And it happened because people do not discuss restroom politics, or at least not openly.

This needs to change. I might get a kick out of being novel, but it shouldn’t be that way. Why is something that everybody does so off the discussion table? Why not plan for people to change their babies and carry out normal bodily functions? I don’t have to text and play Words With Friends, yet everyone is so excited by mobile application development. But I do have to go to the bathroom, and while I see the excitement there, I see no restroom agenda. At least, not yet. I’m hoping to change that.



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    Welcome to my restroom blog.
    Here I post thoughts about Geography, GIS, and Restrooms.
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