The author suggests the opposite, at least for McDonald's - the employees do care and are attentive to the needs of the people in the restaurant, and that's part of why the community springs up there. I'd expect McDonald's corporate policy is to hustle people along, and it's inattentiveness to that policy that enables the public square, not inattentiveness to the people in the square.
The author of the article is a published author who writes about poverty and addiction - he links to a good excerpt from his book in the Guardian, which might better establish his bonafides for these kinds of claims: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/05/america-dign...
