How does plumbing poverty function under privatization? Faulty service and water shut-offs are common in Bucharest, the vibrant capital of Romania with a population of 2.3 million. Even before Romania joined the European Union, the Bucharest water and sewerage system (Apa Nova Bucharești) was privatized in 2000 through a 25-year concession to the French transnational company Veolia.

Meanwhile, forced evictions of some residents raises urgent questions of race and racialization, water as a material form of citizenship and belonging, and activism in matters of urban space, housing, and water provision. Our research in Bucharest untangles the legacies—and the complex reasons for persistence—of plumbing poverty in a postsocialist European city.