Well-researched and illustrated, this work advocates for public restrooms as a right that would make urban spaces more welcoming.

Mocked or ignored, restrooms as a topic are symbolic of some major issues facing the world at large. The insufficient number and quality of such facilities poses not only health risks, but is also an obstacle to the equality and dignity of people in public spaces (mass transit passengers, taxi drivers, etc.), women, unhoused people, and people who live in slums. This book also offers an unexpected stroll through history, in the course of which readers will meet an 18th-century clockmaker, Victor Hugo, Jean-Claude Decaux, Stalin, and Bill Gates in a journey from squalor to infatuation, history to policy, tradition to innovation.