Where are all the trash cans?

I live only a few blocks from Dave and Carrie. The neighborhood's really nice and quiet. Which I suppose is why the city decided to take away the garbage cans. Not only is there a general scarcity in garbage cans--who'd ever thought they'd be valuable commodities?--but a couple of cans have disappeared over the years, without explanations or any signs of being replaced. For example, outside P.S. 221 and the North Hills Branch Library, there are NO garbage cans. The closest ones are across the street.
Think about the lesson this teaches the children--they have to walk across Marathon Parkway, a major road, just to throw away the juice bottle or snack wrapper. Its bad enough that there's no recycling specific cans, but this encourages outright littering.
Once you get away from the major roads and into the neighborhood proper, there are no garbage cans, period. None around any corner. There simply is not enough foot-traffic to support the cost. And many think of them as eyesores.
However, those who live in the neighborhood end up paying the cost anyway. Garbage gets tossed onto their property, into their compose piles, left on their steps, even mistakenly placed in private recycling bins by well-meaning individuals, because there is no place to throw it away. Wouldn't it be better just to have a few extra garbage cans lying around?