Geographies of insecure water access and the housing-water nexus in US cities

Abstract

Safe, reliable, and equitable water access is critical to human health and livelihoods. In the United States, an estimated 471,000 households or 1.1 million individuals lack a piped water connection and 73% of households are located in cities, close to networked supply. In this study, we undertake a nationwide analysis of urban water access in the United States, with the aim of explaining the drivers of infrastructural inequality in the 50 largest metropolitan areas. Drawing on statistical analysis and regression modeling of census microdata at the household scale, our analysis reveals spatial and sociodemographic patterns of racialized, class-based, and housing disparities that characterize plumbing poverty. Among unplumbed households, we show that households headed by people of color are almost 35% more likely to lack piped water as compared to white, non-Hispanic households. Precarious housing conditions are an equally strong predictor: Renter-occupied households in the 50 largest US metros were 1.61 times more likely than owner-occupied households to lack piped water. We argue that insecure domestic water access in the United States should be understood as a housing issue that reflects structural inequalities of race and class, particularly in cities with widening wealth gaps. The article concludes with a call for research and action at the intersection of water provision, housing, and social inequality-a paradigm we call the housing-water nexus.

Keywords: cities; household water insecurity; housing; infrastructure; sustainability.

Fig. 1.

Households without piped water access in the United States, 2013 to 2017. This hex map depicts the spatial distribution of households without piped water access, with lighter colors indicating areas with higher numbers of unplumbed households. Shaded areas (in orange) indicate that sampling error is large relative to the estimate, due to the relatively small number of unplumbed households. Data source: US Census Bureau.

Fig. 2.

Plumbing poverty in the top 50 largest US metropolitan areas. Urban areas are plotted by share (percentage) of households without piped water access (y axis) against total number of households without piped water (x axis), adjusted by a log transformation. The dashed horizontal line represents the average share of unplumbed households in the 50 largest metros. Data source: US Census Bureau.