I live in the Boston suburbs. On a foggy walk home one morning, I wandered past this bus stop, noticed this bench, and felt disappointed in everyone involved in creating it.

Benches like this are subtle forms of “hostile architecture“—versions of public infrastructure that are designed to ward off use by the least fortunate in society. Spikes where someone might lie down for shelter, oddly angled seats that discourage getting comfortable, etc. These sorts of decisions are sometimes justified, in places with lots of foot traffic, or to prevent damage from, say skateboards. But more often then not, they’re used to prevent penniless people from sleeping somewhere sheltered or dry. Special constructions designed to ward off use by its user. They’re a way of looking at people who have absolutely nothing, nowhere to go, who are seeking an ounce of comfort from their surroundings, and denying it to them.

Inanimate objects themselves, most would say, are not inherently good or evil. Rather it’s how they’re used, and the intentionality behind their construction and placement that matters. That’s why there would be nothing hostile about anti-sleeping bench in a high-traffic place where there were people lingering or taking up too much space at once, or there was lots of other seating around. But place it somewhere that a desperate person might try to sleep inconspicuously, as a last resort, and it becomes cruel.

The area where I encountered this one isn’t really either of those things. It’s just sitting out on a wide street with no cover nearby, and no houses on that side. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen anyone waiting for a bus here. People take public transportation and there are plenty of pedestrians, but nobody’s lingering. There’s not even visible homelessness around that would prompt a reaction to install a specific anti-homeless-person bench.

Which means that the city either chose this model on purpose, or the bench company makes this kind by default and it’s cheaper. Either someone in city government chose to be cruel without even the excuse of plausibly being afraid of the homeless, or our civic life is so degraded and distrustful that bench manufacturers find it profitable to sell mass-produced hostile benches as the discount option.

I could check I suppose, but why bother? Which option would even be worse? [Note: I just thought about it for 5 sec and realized that the latter case would, because it would represent a more widespread issue.] Fortunately, the main victims of this particular bus stop are mopey citizens like me who find hostile benches depressing, as opposed to any actual hard-up person who needs a bench to sleep on. It’s mostly cruel in a theoretical sense. But just as a prevalence of umbrellas in the hands of Seattleites is a marker of their familiarity with rain, the normality of rude architecture marks a society’s callousness towards the destitute. It would be nice if things like this felt a little bit less normal.