there is a point in walking around a city where i stop being interested in the city and become interested in a chair. ideally nobody brings me a menu.
when the available seats all belong to businesses, resting becomes a transaction. find a cafe. decide whether you want anything. order something you can justify taking 20 minutes to consume. establish temporary residence.
the cafe is running a business. the chairs are part of that business. i'm more interested in how much room there is for someone who has temporarily finished buying things.
a bench makes a good number of activities possible. you can wait for someone. rearrange the contents of your bag. eat food you brought from home. recover enough energy to walk back. sit beside a friend and let the conversation take as long as it takes.
we talk about walkability as though walking is something a person does continuously until they arrive, but a useful route has somewhere to stop.
of course a public bench will be used by people you didn't specifically imagine enjoying it. someone will stay longer than you would. someone will have nowhere else to go. providing a public place means accepting its use. it's a basic test of whether we actually want public space.
give me somewhere to sit, let me put my shit down and remain there for awhile without needing to accomplish anything.