大都市水道事業体の財政分析 : その現状と政策提言

概要

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Since the first modern water supply system in Japan was established in 1887,both the number of water utilities and the amount of the water supply have increased to meet rapidly increasing water demands along with the high growth of the Japanese economy. Now that the rate of service penetration is over 96%, it may be that the waterworks industry has matured. Judging from the situation that an increase in water demand is no longer expected and the facilities which were constructed during a high growth period need to be reconstructed intensively in the years ahead, the circumstance surrounding waterworks will become difficult. Therefore, water utilities are now being reorganized as water systems for wide areas, and so far the national government has given huge financial assistance to water utilities. On the other hand, however, the statistics which divide water utilities into various groups on each scale show that the cost per unit is highest for the largest group of water utilities in the metropolitan areas and cities as designated by ordinance. An insider would know this fact, because a large scale is regarded as an advantage. However, it has yet to become clear whether they are advantageous or not. So this paper concentrates on this point in order to investigate the actual condition of the largest group.