Privatizing water supply may have the same effect as privatizing health insurance: it could be limited to those who can afford it and neighborhoods with poor infrastructure for delivery of potable water may not have that fixed if the company needs to save money.
That is assuming that maintenance of the delivery system is also privatized.
And if the maintenance is still done at taxpayer expense is that a subsidy to the private company that can not make money without this system?
This article on
the perils of privatization presents a sobering precaution:
QUOTE
Following the 1906 earthquake and fires in San Francisco, for example, the city decided to municipalize water service after Spring Valley Water—the company charged with the task—failed to deliver while the fires raged.[...]In Philadelphia, as well as in San Francisco, the business of firefighting was once very lucrative—for both, the firefighting companies and the arsonists who were paid to “generate business.”
[...]“Large amounts of public contracting out historically created lots of opportunities for fraud and nepotism,” says Jacobs. So, public agencies stepped in to provide basic services as cheaply and uniformly as possible. Towns and cities took on the tasks of security, education, and sanitation. Nationally, the federal government improved roads and transit, enacted Social Security benefits, and established a National Park System, among other things.
I could add that privatizing the parking authority makes it unresponsive.