Although Urinetown poses a supposedly far-fetched and ridiculous premise in its imposition of a fee for peeing, the actual history of that kind of taxation may surprise you. The first Urine Tax in known history was first imposed by the Roman Emperor Vespasian, who ruled in the late first century. Urine was known to contain several valuable chemicals (notably ammonia), which were used in the tanning and laundering industries at the time. Urine was collected from the upper classes, and a tax was imposed on those who wished to purchase this valuable resource.
The Urine Tax (or vectigal urinae, in the original Latin) was considered a disgusting policy by Vespasian's son, Titus. When Titus complained about it to his father, Vespasian was reported to have picked up a gold coin and remarked, "Pecunia non olet", or, "Money does not stink". This was perhaps the most famous phrase ever spoken by Vespasian, and has remained with us ever since, now commonly spoken to downplay the questionable (or outright illegal) sources of financial gain. [BTW: Some of the original Urine Tax no doubt went toward the construction of the Roman Coliseum, which was built during Vespasian's 10-year reign.]
The Coliseum notwithstanding, Vespasian's contribution to modern architecture can be seen in one other notable way: because of his famous Urine Tax, public pay toilets in some parts of the French-speaking world became known as Vespaciens. To the left is an example of a Vespacien built in Montreal in 1930. Although the concept of pay toilets is completely novel to most Americans, certainly those of your age, the concept of a fee for pee, is widespread throughout Europe's major cities (especially Paris).
While pay toilets are fairly rare in the United States today, we did go through a period, in the 1950s and 60s, during which they were very common. The first recorded American establishment to install a pay toilet was "Walt's", a restaurant built on Hollywood Boulevard in 1935 by none other than Walt Disney. From there, pay toilets spread throughout the country, most often located in bus stations and airports, places where their need was exceptionally strong (e.g., after a long trip) and the public was willing to pay the fee. Eventually they started popping up in department stores and shopping malls, which is where I think I saw my last American pay toilet when I was a boy.
By the 1970s, though, political unrest had begun to build, and a grassroots movement to ban the use of pay toilets began to grow. One of the largest organizations opposed to the use of pay toilets was the Committee to End Pay Toilets in America (or CEPTIA, I'm not making this up), founded by 19-year-old Ira Gessel:
When a man's or woman's natural body functions are restricted because he or she doesn't have a piece of change, there is no true freedom. -- Ira Gessel
Freedom through complimentary urination. Set that quote to music and you have another production number for Urinetown. I am proud to note that Chicago was the very first city to ban the use of pay toilets in 1973, and by the end of that decade pay toilets were virtually unknown in the U.S. But take some change with you if you visit a train station in parts of Europe, where the act of using a public toilet became euphemistically known as "dropping a penny".
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