[jbb_hn]

A few years ago, my city provided all residents with low flow showerheads - for “free”. They were even delivered directly to homes.

They included literature around reducing consumption and the importance of that for sustainability.

Enough residents installed these that it led to a city budget deficit, since water consumption went way down, and they therefore generated less revenue.

Their answer to this? Raise water prices.

[imtringued]

It really is weird. We work hard to produce a lot of water and then we expect there to be a buyer for the water, simply because we worked hard for it.

I'd say reducing water usage was a good thing even if it lead to higher prices but unless the population of that city is growing it clearly is a waste of potential to have all that infrastructure sit partially idle.

[photojosh]

Wasn't there anything else they could raise prices on? Something else with negative externalities?

Some that come to mind are garbage collection (our town reduced waste bin sizes) and parking costs.

[adrianN]

At least were I live, raising parking costs is a surefire way not to get elected next time.

[arbitrary_name]

Isn't that a good outcome? Water efficiency is a net good outcome for your city. Raising costs to recoup the deficit is ok with me, personally, if objectives like sustainability and efficiency were achieved.

[jbb_hn]

Saving water is a good outcome.

It would have been nice if the reward for doing so was less cost, since that was one of the big marketing messages of the campaign.

Instead they opted to give us less for more - perhaps that was the intention all along.

[musingsole]

Reducing net water usage by a city == good thing

Raising taxes on citizenry because they're using less resources == bad thing worthy of riots