I don't mean to offend but I suspect it's because people in the USA, at least in cities, just can't take care of public places.

There's urine in the train stations (either visible or smellable), elevators shut down by faeces, people shouting, yelling and preaching in the streets, also, toilets, often even in private restaurants, are disgusting.

I don't mean to say that things are always like this, all the time or in all cities and I understand that it's a minority of people who cause these problems but the problems are far from uncommon.

With a place like a public bath in particular, cleanliness is extremely important and I just can't see it working. It only takes one inconsiderate person relieving them self in the water to ruin it for everyone and I find it hard to believe that in a day in an average US city you wouldn't find such a person. My impression is that it works in Japan because the society is extremely communal and you're far, far less likely to find such an inconsiderate person.

I can kind of see it working in smaller US communities where people know and respect each other though. In small communities, everyone knows each other and people are much less likely to be inconsiderate towards friends and acquaintances than they are towards strangers.

These responses are peak HN, it's hilarious and disappointing. The actual answer to your question is that tons of cities had beautiful public baths (I live next to a locked one), and shut them down when they became ground zero for AIDS transmission. Men were having risky sex in the locker rooms, and the closing of the public baths is seen as the turning point for the US taking the AIDS crisis seriously. The below address mostly private baths, but the rules ended both.

http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Sex_Panic_Closes_Bath...

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/26/nyregion/state-permits-clo...

Certainly hot tubs in San Francisco were mostly closed due to aids or so I am told

http://articles.latimes.com/1987-05-08/news/mn-2810_1_gay-ba...

Sentos (public baths in Japan) certainly don't have any kind of rep like that AFAIK

I think the answer is much simpler. In the US almost every home has a bathing/showering facility built in. There's not much need for a bathhouse. Because they weren't used by regular people very much, people got this idea that the only reason you would go to one is for some other reason.

In reality the total number of incidents of unsavory rendezvous in the bathhouses were probably not much higher than in countries with more extensive public bath house culture, but the percentage of patrons who went there for other reasons was considerably higher.

Basically without the normal activity masking it, the unsavory activity stood out.

My completely baseless view is that it's entwined with the relative views towards nudity in both cultures. If I had to guess, the age of Europe has forced cultural views of nudity to shape themselves around the presence of necessary public baths in history. In contrast, the relative youth of the US has meant that said cultrual establishment never caught on because private bathing was possible from the get-go of Anglo-US settlement.

It's not that they never took off (there used to be many, esp in urban places with lots of European immigrants), its that they run counter to the hyper-individualistic American mindset. And over time, communal features of American civic life have become objects of neglect if not derision (public education, public transport, etc)

I suspect it's a cultural thing. Japanese people are totally okay with group bathing while to Americans bathing is a more private matter. Leaving aside public baths for a moment, Japanese people often bathe together as a family -- something you rarely see here.

Probably Puritanism, a lack of scarcity, a relatively short time between large settlements and indoor plumbing (for most of the country).

I wish there were more public baths. There's one around the block from me in Cambridge. It's a wonderful place in the middle of winter.

We have "public baths". They are usually called "YMCA's" and they charge a fee. There are saunas and steam rooms and chlorinated swimming pools at most YMCA facilities.

The USA passed the 50% indoor plumbing threshhold between the 1920 and 1930 census, so earlier people must have done something. I believe the question is no longer on the census long form as indoor plumbing is well over 90%.

I personally do 80% of bathing at the gym after exercise.

I suspect it's mostly just the underlying culture. Japan was more into baths/bathing in pre-industrial times than most of the world, and there is hot springs tourism.

Have you ever seen a naked average American?