[austincheney]

One potential solution is graduated rate increases for utility consumption above a baseline. Everybody deserves cheap equal access to utilities but above the baseline the price rate per gallon or kilowatt hour should increase 7% for every 10% quantity usage above baseline from residences.

[sly010]

This is how taxes work, so it makes total sense, perhaps with the exception that the baseline might be different for different "use cases" (ie. residential vs commercial).

[OGWhales]

A relevant comment from elsewhere in this comment section: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27460680

[ben7799]

I live in New England, we sometimes have watering bans but overall we have nothing like California.

We already have graduated water increases in my town, go above a certain limit and your price will go up 5X.

It seems insane that any place in the west doesn't have a sliding scale since it's a desert and water is a zillion times more difficult to come by.

And we can mostly grow lawns without even watering.. they'll turn yellow for a little bit in the peak of the summer but they certainly won't die without irrigation/sprinklers like the west.

[AnimalMuppet]

Wait, you have watering bans in New England?

First, you need to water in New England? I thought you got enough rain out there.

Second, you have water shortages? Or was there another reason for the watering ban?

[ben7799]

Yep, absolutely.

There have been watering limits/bans for as long as I can remember. (I'm in my mid-40s).

Some towns have them and some don't. But the signs go up when we go into droughts.

As for whether you need to water.. it depends on what someone is going for. If you want ground cover that's got lots of weeds and native plants and isn't pure green then don't need to water. If you want a pure green golf course style lawn you will need to water.

[kunagi7]

Where I live (southern Europe) they do that already. After all, Mediterranean climates don't have a lot of rain so we're used to droughts.

Base consumption hovers around 30€ every 2 months but the price per cubic meter (m^3) increases quite dramatically every 6 cubic meters. Families get cheaper pricing than people living alone.

People with gardens or pools have to pay quite a lot (most of them recycle the water though).

[daniellarusso]

Which, ironically, most municipalities incentivize the opposite.

The more you use, the less it costs.

[austincheney]

Where I live that is due to utility deregulation and market competition. The rate increase would have to be the result of regulation that applies to all utility providers in order to work.