Plumbing poverty: insecure access, shutoffs, and the social infrastructures of water in Europe and the USA

Household water insecurity--the lack of safe, reliable, sufficient, and affordable water for a thriving life--is a global threat to human health and sustainable development. This project examines insecure water access and shutoffs in the global North--a significant, in some places growing, and yet poorly understood problem that is reproduced in high-income countries. The project asks: Why do such infrastructural conditions arise and persist in wealthy cities and countries? In identifying key patterns and drivers of plumbing poverty in Europe and the United States, this project aims to explain household water insecurity in relation to the changing political economy of public service provision. First, the project will use statistical and time-series analysis of census microdata to identify spatial patterns and trends in insecure water access in six countries (Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and the USA) from 1970-present. Coupled with policy analysis, the results will provide insights into common trends and divergences across Europe and the USA. Second, the project will explain the social and institutional factors that lead to insecure water access and shutoffs in different kinds of cities, drawing on comparative case study analysis of four metro regions (two in Europe, two in the USA). As cities in the North move toward market-based and financialized models of water and sanitation services, this research will catalyze new theory about the state of social infrastructures in advanced capitalist societies and provide data-driven explanation for the persistence of household water insecurity in the places we may least expect.