Abstract |
Research attempted to determine what actually occurs at the local level of government in the process of planning and implementing water resource proposals and what relationship exists between the local level of government and the type of community in which water resource decisions are made. Four metropolitan water supply systems were studied: Boston, Mass; Detroit, Mich; Springfield, Mass; and Hartford, Conn. Five specific water supply conflict situations were compared and a statistical study was made of the relationship between certain community profile characteristics and four attributes of local water service in Massachusetts. Water supply service is affected by: the size of population concentration, thereby creating 'need' for a public water system; by geography, thereby affecting technical feasibility; by the way in which the water service agency is administered (including especially the form of agency organization, its authority to act, and the legal constraints under which it operates); by the agency's relationship to other agencies; by the type of government under which the agency operates; and by the type of community within which water service decisions are made (including the community's socioeconomic and political characteristics). The most important factors were the geologic, demographic, socioeconomic, and political 'base' within the administrative agency functions. (Author) |