IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pwat00/0000277.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing the impact of rightsizing drinking water infrastructure system in flint, Michigan

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Casey Sadler
  • Hyun Jeong Koo
  • Basheer Allamy
  • Shawn P McElmurry

Abstract

For sustainable urban systems, appropriately sized infrastructure is essential. When cities face long-term population decline, however, downsizing rigid infrastructure built to last decades is challenging and costly. Some of the challenges include significant upfront costs to remove or modify infrastructure, weighing future expansion burdens, and prioritizing which portion of the infrastructure modify. This study examines engineering challenges associated with rightsizing water infrastructure in a shrinking city. In this paper, utilizing on a full-scale model of Flint’s drinking water distribution system, we evaluate scenarios which include abandoning and resizing of pipes based on block-level population and economic decline. We also quantify the cost of property acquisition and construction for these changes. The impact of these changes on water pressure and quality (i.e., water age) as well as on different racial and socioeconomic groups are also analyzed. Based on the results of this analysis, we present six major findings broadly applicable to shrinking cities: (1) local modification to drinking water pipe networks impacts surrounding areas, (2) decommissioning pipes can negatively impact water system performance, (3) shrinking pipes generally improves water quality, (4) resizing pipes is expensive, (5) housing-related costs are significant, and (6) shrinkage can disproportionately impact groups of people. This study highlights the complexities involved when attempting to shrink infrastructure and supplies valuable information for practitioners, planners, and decision-makers about the engineering challenges and upfront costs of rightsizing infrastructure for sustainable redevelopment.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Casey Sadler & Hyun Jeong Koo & Basheer Allamy & Shawn P McElmurry, 2025. "Assessing the impact of rightsizing drinking water infrastructure system in flint, Michigan," PLOS Water, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(4), pages 1-21, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pwat00:0000277
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000277
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/water/article?id=10.1371/journal.pwat.0000277
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/water/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pwat.0000277&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000277?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Justin B. Hollander & Jeremy Németh, 2011. "The bounds of smart decline: a foundational theory for planning shrinking cities," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 349-367, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Prener, Chris & Braswell, Taylor & Monti, Daniel J., 2018. "St. Louis's "Urban Prairie": Vacant Land and the Potential for Revitalization," SocArXiv bc7eh, Center for Open Science.
    2. Bin Du & Ying Wang & Jiaxin He & Wai Li & Xiaohong Chen, 2021. "Spatio-Temporal Characteristics and Obstacle Factors of the Urban-Rural Integration of China’s Shrinking Cities in the Context of Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-16, April.
    3. Roemer, Kelli F. & Haggerty, Julia H., 2021. "Coal communities and the U.S. energy transition: A policy corridors assessment," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    4. Zhenshan Yang, 2019. "Sustainability of Urban Development with Population Decline in Different Policy Scenarios: A Case Study of Northeast China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(22), pages 1-17, November.
    5. Jaekyung Lee & Galen Newman & Yunmi Park, 2018. "A Comparison of Vacancy Dynamics between Growing and Shrinking Cities Using the Land Transformation Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-17, May.
    6. Rachel S. Franklin, 2021. "The demographic burden of population loss in US cities, 2000–2010," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 209-230, April.
    7. Marjan Marjanović & Marcelo Sagot Better & Nikola Lero & Zorica Nedović-Budić, 2024. "Can Acceptance of Urban Shrinkage Shift Planning Strategies of Shrinking Cities From Growth to De-Growth?," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9.
    8. Xiao, Huijuan & Duan, Zhiyuan & Zhou, Ya & Zhang, Ning & Shan, Yuli & Lin, Xiyan & Liu, Guosheng, 2019. "CO2 emission patterns in shrinking and growing cities: A case study of Northeast China and the Yangtze River Delta," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 251(C), pages 1-1.
    9. Agim Kërçuku, 2024. "Does Reduced Space Result in Fewer Rights? Controlled Shrinking in the Urban Renewal of Genoa," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9.
    10. David McCollum & Hebe Nicholson & Paula Duffy, 2021. "A place-based approach to population sustainability: Demographic and economic change at the local level in Fife, Scotland," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 36(6), pages 505-523, September.
    11. Olivia Lewis & Sílvia Sousa & Paulo Pinho, 2022. "Multifunctional Green Infrastructure in Shrinking Cities: How Does Urban Shrinkage Affect Green Space Planning?," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(2), pages 186-201.
    12. Yang Yang & Zhe Dong & Bing-Bing Zhou & Yang Liu, 2024. "Smart Growth and Smart Shrinkage: A Comparative Review for Advancing Urban Sustainability," Land, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-21, May.
    13. Justin Hollander & Michael Johnson & Rachel Bogardus Drew & Jingyu Tu, 2019. "Changing urban form in a shrinking city," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 46(5), pages 963-991, June.
    14. Zezhou Wu & Danting Zhang & Shenghan Li & Jianbo Fei & Changhong Chen & Bin Tian & Maxwell Fordjour Antwi-Afari, 2022. "Visualizing and Understanding Shrinking Cities and Towns (SCT) Research: A Network Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(18), pages 1-14, September.
    15. Khairul Hisyam Kamarudin & Hu Jianke & Mohamad Fadhli Rashid & Nadzirah Hosen, 2025. "Smart Shrinkage Strategies for Rural Economic and Settlement Revitalisation in China," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 9(3), pages 453-465, March.
    16. Emily Rosenman & Samuel Walker, 2016. "Tearing down the city to save it? ‘Back-door regionalism’ and the demolition coalition in Cleveland, Ohio," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(2), pages 273-291, February.
    17. Jason Hackworth, 2015. "Rightsizing as Spatial Austerity in the American Rust Belt," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(4), pages 766-782, April.
    18. repec:osf:socarx:bc7eh_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Bozhko, L. L., 2017. "Government support for monotowns in the Republic of Kazakhstan," R-Economy, Ural Federal University, Graduate School of Economics and Management, vol. 3(1), pages 1-11.
    20. Rui Ding & Yuqi Zhu & Siwei Shen & Linyu Du & Jun Fu & Jian Zou & Lina Peng, 2024. "Does Urban Shrinkage Inhibit Residents' Welfare? From the Perspective of Urban–Rural Development in China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 171(3), pages 847-876, February.
    21. Mikel AGIRRE-MASKARIANO, 2019. "Resisting Against Speculative Urban Regeneration In The Shrinking City Of Ferrol," Theoretical and Empirical Researches in Urban Management, Research Centre in Public Administration and Public Services, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 14(1), pages 5-29, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pwat00:0000277. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: water (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/water .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.