The Incidence of the Cost of Increasing the Capacity of an Urban Water System

Extract

Rural and urban communities alike are adopting, formally or informally, “no-growth” policies. The residents of these communities share a set of beliefs concerning the impact of economic growth and development on their community. These residents also share a set of values concerning what constitutes the good life for them. The “no-growth” policies result because of a conflict between the values held by the residents and their beliefs concerning the impacts of economic growth and development. One of the beliefs shared by many of these residents is that economic growth and development will require an expansion of various public service systems such as water and sewer. In addition, these residents believe that they will be required to pay much of the cost involved in expanding the systems even though they will receive few, if any, of the benefits. In essence, the residents of these communities are concerned with the incidence of the cost of system expansion.