Water Unaffordability in the United States: Using Principles of Organizational Learning to Understand Municipal Capacity to Safeguard Water Access

美国的用水难承受能力：联合国承认获得充足、安全、可接受、可实际获得和负担得起的水和卫生设施是基本人权，这是一项基本人权。尽管如此，美国消费者的家庭用水和卫生服务成本的增长速度远远快于21世纪的总体生活成本。拖欠水费的情况正在增加，一些城市的自来水公司已经做出了回应，切断了对未付水费家庭的供水。该项目将确定导致人们买不起水的历史、生态、人口、技术、政治和法律因素，并评估弱势群体水价上涨的后果。该项目将展示一个城市的组织能力，如财政和经济资源、正规政策、有形基础设施、信息系统资源以及城市雇员的技能和专业培训，如何影响城市供水能力政策的设计和实施。该项目还将说明某些类型的政策和做法对美国老年人、残疾人、低收入和非白人的影响程度。该项目将帮助政府官员确定造成水资源可负担性政策变化的因素，还将开发教育材料，促进市政官员、自来水公司管理者和公众之间的伙伴关系，帮助他们改善当地的水资源可负担性和援助计划。21世纪，家庭用水和卫生服务的成本急剧上升，水费拖欠影响了一些家庭。这项研究使用混合方法和比较案例研究设计，以了解市政当局的组织能力和水资源管理者的自由裁量权如何与州一级的法律和经济因素相互作用，以影响有关低收入、非白人和其他社会弱势群体的成本减免政策的决策，以及确保支付水费和卫生费用的执法机制。该项目将首先收集马萨诸塞州和宾夕法尼亚州两个州12个城市的水政策行政和档案数据。接下来，该项目将选择6-8个城市进行半结构化、深度访谈，每个城市9-10个访谈，总共约80个访谈。比较案例研究设计将市政决策嵌套在州一级的法律、政治和经济限制的背景下，将推进可持续发展研究，重点是基于地点的动态如何有助于可持续和公正地管理人类需求和生态资源。该项目将推进关于组织能力和组织学习的社会学理论，展示公共部门组织如何在制定促进或限制获得基本人类需求的政策时整合多种类型的知识--技术、官僚和伦理。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Water Unaffordability in the United States: Using Principles ofOrganizational Capacity to Understand Municipal Variation in Providing Water Access The United Nations has recognized access to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible, and affordable water and sanitation as fundamental human rights. Nevertheless, the cost of household water and sanitation services for U.S. consumers has risen much faster than the general cost of living in the 21st century. Nonpayment of water bills is increasing and water utilities in some cities have responded by shutting off water delivery to households with unpaid bills. This project will identify the historical, ecological, demographic, technological, political, and legal factors that contribute to water unaffordability, and assess the consequences of escalating water costs for vulnerable populations. The project will show how a city’s organizational capacity, e.g., fiscal and economic resources, formal policies, physical infrastructure, information system resources, and the skill and professional training of city employees, affects the design and implementation of city policies on water affordability. The project will also illustrate the extent to which certain types of policies and practices disproportionately affect elderly, disabled, low-income, and non-white Americans. The project will help government officials identify forces that create variations in water affordability policies, and will also develop educational materials to facilitate partnerships between municipal officials, water utility managers, and the public, to help them improve local water affordability and assistance programs. The costs of household water and sanitation services has risen sharply in the 21st century, and nonpayment of water bills has affected some households. The study uses mixed methods and a comparative case study design to understand how a municipality’s organizational capacity and discretion among water resource managers interact with state-level legal and economic factors to shape decisions about cost relief policies for low-income, non-white, and other socially vulnerable groups, and enforcement mechanisms that secure payment of water and sanitation bills. The project will first collect administrative and archival data on water policies in a sample of 12 cities in 2 states: Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Next, the project will select 6-8 cities for semi-structured, in-depth interviews, with 9-10 interviews in each city, for a total of approximately 80 interviews. The comparative case study design, which nests municipal decision making in the context of state-level legal, political, and economic constraints, will advance research on sustainability that focuses on how place-based dynamics contribute to sustainable and just management of human needs and ecological resources. The project will advance sociological theories on organizational capacity and organizational learning by showing how public sector organizations integrate multiple types of knowledge--technical, bureaucratic, and ethical--in developing policies that facilitate or constrain access to basic human needs.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.