Benches are just so nice. The value-to-price proposition is amazing and I don't see why any city would disagree with this other than incompetence. I recently ordered a bench for a little public garden in my neighbourhood and plopped it there for 100usd. People love it :)
That's not always the case tho. Sometimes cities just forget benches exist. My town has no real homeless issues but still lacks of benches for some reason and the public parks team would rather spend the money on touristy shit like "dancing fountains" smh
Also benches, like any public property, get vandalised, stolen and covered in bird and other droppings and need costly maintenance to keep in usable condition.
They did that in my city. They build a whole station with zero benches because according to the asshole architect, "station are meant to board train, not to wait".