10/14/2026
Our intern alumna Musa Rahman read 84 US news articles about failing utilities, and Associate Barr, PhD, MPH wrote about what we found.
When the grid fails, someone did it: a utility, a regulator, or a planner. When pipes fail, it's age, decay, "decades of neglect." Nobody in particular. Electricity fixes sound like the future. Water fixes sound like a bottomless money pit.
It's a small, exploratory study. But it underlines that water has a bad narrative, even though words decide who gets held accountable and who gets funded.
Read the full piece here: https://www.itsflush.com/post/water-vs-electricity-media