"Why our water rates are surging – and why black and poor suburbs pay more"

"Lake Michigan water rates have been surging throughout the Chicago region in recent years, squeezing low-income residents and leaving them with little, if any, recourse, a Tribune analysis shows.

In this tangled network that delivers water to the vast majority of the region’s residents, the Tribune found an upside-down world, one where people in the poorest communities pay more for a basic life necessity than those in the wealthiest.

And the financial pain falls disproportionately on majority-African-American communities, where residents’ median water bill is 20 percent higher for the same amount of water than residents pay in predominantly white communities, the Tribune’s examination revealed."

Ted Gregory, Cecilia Reyes, Patrick M. O'Connell, and Angela Caputo report for the Chicago Tribune October 25, 2017. [2]