Shutoffs return: water, housing, and debt in New York City
New York City was an interesting place to be this summer. The front pages were splashed with newly appointed presidential candidate Kamala Harris against a brat green backdrop; packed bars screamed for Simone Biles competing in the Paris Olympics; and a record number of heat emergencies were declared as temperatures soared. Yet despite the extreme heat warnings, City Mayor Eric Adams announced in the spring that “water shutoffs are back”. After a fifteen-year hiatus, delinquent billpayers are now at risk of complete water utility disconnection if they fall behind with payments. As the soaring costs of US housing began to dominate the US election campaign and Eric Adams faced mounting lawsuits for unlawful disconnection of water supply, household water access—or lack thereof—seemed to be on the political agenda.
But why have water shutoffs returned? And who is being affected, and why? Interested in these questions, I spent three weeks in New York City this summer conducting pilot research in advance of my PhD fieldwork in early 2025. To begin teasing out the social, political, and economic conditions that produce water shutoffs, I spent time connecting with staff at legal and housing services who support those at risk of utility disconnection. I also visited archives holding municipal governance documents, walked through areas of the city I knew were experiencing disproportionate levels of plumbing poverty, and spoke to municipal stakeholders in Philadelphia who have been researching shutoffs for years.
What I discovered was a utility governance structure orchestrated by and through debt: one in nine households in New York City are behind on their water payments and thousands more have been served shutoff notices. And at the municipal level, water debt is increasingly being used to pay off City debt. As the City attempts to reap capital by punishing delinquent water accounts, it is doubly charging its own Water Board US$1.4 billion in infrastructural rent over the next four years, leading to hikes in water rates for consumers already squeezed by a cost-of-living crisis. Like other stories of plumbing poverty, these punitive measures aren’t operating on a colour-blind basis.
The re-emergence of water shutoffs in New York City raises urgent questions about equity and justice in utility governance as well as in our cities more broadly. Despite the city’s constitutional right to clean water for all, water is being weaponised as a tool for uneven debt enforcement. What has led us here? As we enter into a second Trump presidency in a political landscape dominated by housing affordability concerns, unpacking the dynamics of the ‘who’ and ‘why’ of water shutoffs in New York City seems more important now than ever.
Image of housing in New York City.
