Barriers to Sustainable Economic Development for a Middle-Sized City in Western Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Abstract

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set the criteria for sustainable economic development. These goals encompass four dimensions, including social, human, economic, and environment, of which the last two goals (i.e., economic and environment) were contemplated in this study. A case study for Corner Brook, a middle-sized city, located in the western region of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, revealed that the current urban water use pricing mechanism is not matched with the SDGs, which reflects impediments to the city’s achievements to become a sustainable economic development community. Residents are billed a fixed rate for water use rather than a tiered or usage-based rate. This is not a resilient policy, as it fails to conserve water resources, ultimately leading to wasting freshwater produce, inhibiting economic growth, creating social exclusion, and degrading natural resources. We recommend changing the current flat-rate based water billing mechanism to either increasing block tariffs or two-part tariffs, adjusted by seasonal rates; issuing governmental policies, such as rebates, subsidies, and lower property taxes to entice residents’ willingness-to-install water meters on their premises; encouraging provisions such as using rain barrels to help cut down water consumption; and raising public knowledge through social media on how high per capita water use is in the region, including how much it costs to install water meters. These recommendations will also help provincial and municipal policymakers pursue the SDGs.

1. Introduction

When societies earmark limited resources to meet the different needs of their residents in a way that, at least, no planetary integrity is compromised, they are moving toward sustainable development, as it was indicated in the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) Report, also known as the Brundtland Report [1]. According to this report, the concept of sustainability contains four pillars: social, economics, environment, and human, which collectively focus on improving quality and life standards for both current and future generations while preserving natural resources. In the context of sustainable economic development, societies (e.g., middle-sized cities) intend to follow the basic rules of sustainable development procedures. Specifically, they try to establish new institutions or reform the existing ones to exploit natural resources better, to efficiently allocate investment toward using innovative, technological advances to meet humans’ unlimited wants.

Middle-sized cities have been placed in an important rank amongst other geographical areas in the context of regional economic development. There is no unique definition of a middle-sized city in the literature, as it is both source- and country-specific. However, the most common factor is that the population determines the size of a city worldwide. For example, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defines a middle-sized city as a region whose population is between 200,000 and 500,000 inhabitants. On the contrary, the United States Census Bureau does not have a specific definition for middle-sized cities. Instead, it describes Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) regions surrounding urban areas with a population of at least 50,000 people [2]. To distinguish between the size of cities, Statistics Canada [3] uses the so-called Population Centre and Rural Area Classification (PCRAC) system derived from the 2016 Census of Population. According to this system, a medium-sized city is defined as a region with a population varying between 30,000 and 99,999.

This study adds significant contributions to the literature in better understanding the relationship between sustainability, economic development, and water resource management. Regional sustainable development has a direct relationship with economic growth in the region, especially when it is tied to environmental protection and social equity. Achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the absence of one of those components might not be possible. Canada is carefully pursuing SDGs, especially the SDG 6 targets and indicators in its urban water policy to ensure that the freshwater provided for its residents is safe and clean, given all sanitary and hygiene conditions, and its water resources are sustainably protected and managed through the restoration of water ecosystems. Access to safe, clean, and affordable drinking water with meticulous standards has been set in the country’s urban water policy through the Canadian Water Guidelines and the Water and Wastewater Systems Effluent Regulations under the Fisheries Act [4]. We discuss barriers to sustainable economic development for Corner Brook, a middle-sized city located on the Bay of Islands, at the Humber River’s mouth, in western Newfoundland. The province of Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada in the Atlantic region, with a total size of 405,720 square kilometers and 510,550 inhabitants [5]. The city of Corner Brook, with 19,333 inhabitants, is the second-largest populated city in the province, after its capital, the city of St. John’s, which is in the eastern part of the province. Following Corner Brook are the cities of Grand Falls-Windsor with 11,986 and Gander with 9918 inhabitants [5]. It is worth acknowledging that the usual definition of middle-sized cities is, to some extent, circumstantial, and does not generally apply to the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and especially not to the city of Corner Brook, with respect to the population measurement. Corner Brook covers gaps between rural communities on the west coast and the large-sized metropolitan area in eastern Newfoundland and Labrador. Its substantial contributions to the provincial economy as well as cultural and social development are important, as it provides services for the western and northern parts of the province. Like other middle-sized cities, the city of Corner Brook has some barriers to sustainable economic development stemming from the fact that it is governed by local governments (i.e., municipalities) which are facing problems with respect to budget, structural framework, and public governance. For example, the city suffers from budget deficiency and difficulty in financing various urban projects; lack of proper in-used infrastructure for resources; ongoing rising population caused by the recent increase in the number of immigrants as a result of the decision made by the former Government of Canada, which affects the shape of the population demographic; insufficient job opportunities; inadequate regulatory conditions in terms of transfer payments; aging populations, which is an important issue throughout the entire province of Newfoundland and Labrador; on-going increase in non-labor force population; unsustainable resource management, especially in providing and maintaining fresh water, and suitable waste management plans; insufficient accommodation opportunities; inability to make autonomous decisions without consulting the provincial government; and principal–agent problems, especially with different labor unions, etc.

Responding to the above problems, this study focuses on the unsustainable use of natural resources, especially urban water use, in the city of Corner Brook, which will be discussed in Section 4 of this paper. The province of Newfoundland and Labrador has the highest daily per capita consumption of commercial and residential urban water use (i.e., 792 L) in Canada, which is almost twice the Canadian average of 427 L per day [6]. The average daily per capita urban water use in Corner Brook is even higher than that of the province for reasons such as aging water infrastructure (i.e., water treatment plant and water distribution), lack of water-meter installation on houses built prior to 2014, and flat-rate charges (instead of volume-based or metered charges) for water consumption for all houses irrespective of water-meter installation. The main objective of this study is to investigate factors that may affect a household’s decision to install water meters on their premises in Corner Brook. This study looks for proper answers to the following questions. First, what are the main factors for sustainable economic development? Second, how can sustainable economic development policies enable middle-sized cities to accomplish their goals? Third, what factors affect households in terms of installing water meters? The installation of water meters on all houses and revision to charging urban water use is one of the steps that the city of Corner Brook can potentially take to move toward sustainable economic development.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 explains the concept of economic development, theoretically, and lists general barriers that influence developing and improving the status quo of middle-sized cities. Section 3 briefly reviews the literature on the economic development of middle-sized cities in the world. Section 4 provides the results of an empirical analysis of recent research that features the unsustainable use of urban water consumption in the city of Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador. Section 5 concludes with the study and provides directions for policymakers.

2. Background

The concept of economic development was added to the literature after the termination of World War II, following the inaugural speech of the 33rd President of the United States, President Harry S. Truman, on the 20 January 1949, to prioritize the establishment of proper infrastructures for the development of undeveloped areas in the United States as well as other nations [7].

“… we must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas. More than half the people of the world are living in conditions approaching misery. Their food is inadequate. They are victims of disease. Their economic life is primitive and stagnant. Their poverty is a handicap and a threat both to them and to more prosperous areas. For the first time in history, humanity possesses the knowledge and skill to relieve suffering of these people…”

Thereafter, several arguments were raised by different social scientists to support the initial definition of economic development that pivots on the concept of economic growth. For instance, Gerschenkron [8] expressed that the disparity in available infrastructures amongst nations might disadvantage them during the process of economic development. As a result, states have sped up their transitional movement process from a primitive and traditional economy phase towards more modernized nations. This phenomenon, proposed by Rostow [9], occurred during the 1940s to 1960s, and has been followed by most nations under the persuasion of modernization theory, asserting that how states move from a primitive economic status to a modernized one, fundamentally relies on the postulation that the transition is linear and a multifaceted subject, including economics, sociology, political science, and public relations. Rostow [9] identified the following five stages of the modernization theory that should be followed by less developed countries: (i) conventional custom-initiated society, (ii) infrastructures being set to take off, (iii) take off, (iv) movement toward maturity, and (v) periods of substantial consumption. These stages conformed to the idea that all nations, especially less developed countries, should follow the routes designed and implemented by Western societies to achieve their goals of economic development, which may raise a fallacy of composition. A fundamental problem with Rostow’s [9] model is that countries do not have homogenous infrastructures, and the inherent linearity assumption in the model would be idealistic in this matter. In the 1970s, economists suggested that to achieve the goals of economic development, nations would be required to train more human capital through on-the-job training, career advancement training sessions, real-world problem-solving approaches, critical thinking approaches, multistep instructional systems development methods, sensitivity training, performance management, and career planning [10,11,12]. Sweetland [13] asserted that all these methods reflect the postulation that human capital should be considered as assets rather than assumed as one of the inputs’ costs throughout the entire production process and services. The 1980s were the decade of the School of Neoliberalism and its proponents [14,15,16,17], extending towards the late 20th century. The Chicago School of Economics, the Austrian School of Economics, and other Neoliberalism economists [18,19,20] believed in free trade and market capitalism with minimum to zero government interventions, privatization, deregulation, and supported sustainable economic growth to promote human progress.

The literature shows different definitions of economic development depending on the specific field of study in the 20th century. For instance, sociologists interpreted the concept of economic development based on changes in the economic system and modernization [21], whereas economists believed that economic development has a close relationship with the concept of economic growth, defined as an increase in the total output produced in an economy during a given period. Seidman [22] expressed economic development from the view of an urban scientist. The researcher described economic development as a sequence of procedures that view the concept in terms of initiating proper infrastructure and providing sufficient resources (e.g., human and non-human capital, financial, and social) that are required to help municipalities or local governments boost the well-being and quality of their residents’ lives. Greenwood and Holt [23] did not agree with the prevalent thoughts of economists who conveyed economic development as a result of increasing the growth rate of the economy. On the contrary, these researchers argued that the concept of economic development is closely related to an ongoing and sustainable increase in the standard of living for the entire community and cannot be measured simply by either gross domestic product or gross domestic product per capita. Ngowi [24] stressed that economic development can be seen as people’s choices. This aspect of economic development has already been documented in the literature. In 1997, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) listed four choices that could determine economic development for a nation. The first choice was empowerment, categorized in four-fold: individual, social, community, and economic empowerment. Amongst all these factors, this study focuses on the last, the factor that provides the residents of a middle-sized city access to the basic components of economic development, including, but not limited to, education, healthcare, employment, economic efficiency, public and financial services, price-level stability, equitable distribution of income, economic freedom, and economic security. The second choice was equity stemming from the fact that everyone in a society is entitled to have access to various opportunities and resources that aim to mitigate the imbalances between them, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, or place of origin. The third choice was productivity, traditionally defined as maximizing output for a given level of factors of production. Recently, this concept has been broadly described to encompass issues such as goal prioritizing and time management efficiency. The last choice was sustainability, which is a multipurpose concept that generally addresses the efficient use of resources at time t to meet the needs of current generations, allowing future generations to employ these resources at time t + 1. Although each one of the above definitions of economic development is subject oriented, they all agree on the following interrelated factors as the key principles of economic development for every region or country: sustainability, equitability, inclusivity, and diversification of resources; investment in physical and human capital; stable governance and well-established legal, social, cultural, and economic institutions; infrastructure development, technological innovation, trade and globalization; active community engagement and participation; economic resilience, transparency for better public and private partnerships, and, finally, adaptability and flexibility.

The California Association for Local Economic Development (CALED) defines economic development as the process of creating wealth in terms of economic and social enhancement that could lead to the prosperity and improvement of the quality of life for corresponding communities and, ultimately, for their inhabitants [25]. To move in the right direction towards economic growth of middle-sized cities, local governments should contemplate different plans while considering sustainable growth rates in economic prosperity to increase residents’ income levels; construct proper physical infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, harbors, hubs of market transactions; provide solid institutions for new entrants in different industries; invest in and improve healthcare and educational systems. Municipal governments are expected to gain benefits from the outcomes of the above plans, which will lead to raising the standard of living and overall well-being of the residents of middle-sized cities. However, achieving those goals will not be easy and requires the removal of barriers that could hinder economic development and improve the status quo of middle-sized cities. Some examples of these barriers are confined infrastructure (e.g., transportation, communication connectivity, utilities and energy supplies), an insufficient number of skilled workers, limited investment capital, low rate of population growth, insufficient diversified industries, social inequality, out-migration, weak local governance and political instability, limited market accessibility, nontransparent regulations, and environmental concerns (e.g., mismanagement in natural resources, climate change, pollution, etc.). As mentioned earlier, this study focuses on the unsustainable use of natural resources, specifically urban water consumption in the City of Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador. We will explain more about the issue in Section 4 of this paper.

3. Recent Studies on Sustainable Economic Development

The concept of sustainable economic development has been extensively explored in the literature from various direct and indirect subjects, such as economic growth; boosting living standards; financial constraints; infrastructure deficiencies; governance and planning challenges; human capital; primitive dependent single industries; urban sprawl and improper allocation of land use; environmental degradation, pollution, and climate change impacts; social inequality; public disengagement; political instability; and untransparent and incomprehensive data.

Meng et al. [26] investigated households’ rural outmigration towards urban regions because of land tenure arrangements in rural China. The researchers used a dichotomous (logit) model and the propensity score matching (PSM) method to assess the impact of economic development on a new land reform policy in China. They hypothesized that the new land reform policy could have a positive effect on rural residents’ decisions to move from rural regions to urban centers. This is in continuation of a long-running land reform policy that the Chinese government has been implementing since 1978, under a policy so-called the Household Responsibility System (HRS). Under this policy, land management rights were separate from land contract rights (also known as land use rights). Zhou and Shen [27] stated that the main objective of this policy is to encourage rural residents to leave their premises and move towards urban regions by providing land tenure security, which enables them to increase their rural households’ income. The results of the study showed that rural residents who joined the Rural Land Registration and Certification (RLRC) Program, introduced in 2008, were more likely than others to immigrate from their initial premises, which led to increased land tenure security. This stems from holding a legitimate document issued in the name of immigrants. In summary, a proper policy has made sustainable economic development possible in the region of the study.

Shakoor and Ahmed [28] listed three distinct yet interconnected and vital reasons (i.e., economic, social, and environmental) that explain sustainable development in any region. The researchers built a Panel Autoregressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) Pooled Mean Group (PMG) model by applying unplanned data collected from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) during 2000–2020. Shakoor and Ahmed [28] used the same countries as members of the SAARC region as Dev et al. [29] considered in their study, which were Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Shakoor and Ahmed [28] looked to find any relationships between the above dimensions of sustainable development and economic growth for the region of the study. The findings of the study were two-fold: (i) they concluded that a positive relationship existed between real domestic products and economic sustainable development, and (ii) they found a negative relationship between gross domestic products and environmental and social development goals. A general conclusion from the Shakoor and Ahmed study can be made: not all sustainable development goals move in the same direction for every country, and as a result, the connection between these goals should be separately examined for each nation.

The literature also shows that sustainable economic development could be discussed from three distinct perspectives: the business sector, the household (consumer) sector, and the public governance sector [30]. This study explores the relationship between the sustainable use of natural resources, especially urban water use, and the local municipality (i.e., public governance) in the City of Corner Brook, located on the west coast of the island of Newfoundland in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Under this perspective, the major role of local (municipal) government and its policymakers is to establish a series of regulatory frameworks for the better use of industrial and residential (in particular) renewable water resources in the region of study. As seen in Section 4 of this study, it is noted that the municipal government should offer new policies to reform the urban water use in a sustainable manner to preserve renewable natural resources. This reform could be in the format of investment subsidies on water meter installation, public loans, suitable regulatory frameworks, such as improving social awareness on sustainable urban water use through organizing webinars, seminars, workshops, tax incentives, and subsidies, to encourage residents to install water meters on their premises [31].

Tassonyi [32] expressed that almost all cities (regardless of size) in Canada have been dealing with insufficient fiscal assets (i.e., human and physical capital) and non-solid public governance. Some of these problems that could vary amongst different cities are housing status, an unbalanced population pyramid, high frictional and structural unemployment rates, insufficient job opportunities, etc. The term non-solid public governance refers to a situation in which municipal governments of middle-sized cities in Canada have been confined to allocate their limited budget to various projects that require the approval of provincial and federal governments (depending upon the scale of the project), although they try to maintain balanced budgets each fiscal year. To provide acceptable public services to the residents, municipalities strongly rely on continuous revenue streams by collecting different taxes (e.g., property taxes), which are sufficient only to cover their operational expenses (e.g., salaries, utilities, supplies). As a result, they will have to access capital markets to finance some multi-year investments, such as new capacity building, equipment and machinery purchases, facility improvements, employing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, infrastructure projects, etc. In addition, middle-sized cities should deal with other problems, including an aging population, out-of-date equipment, and affordable housing. There are three criteria that one could evaluate for middle-sized cities’ fiscal health [32]. First, a middle-sized city should consider its obligations to finance different urban projects in a sustainable manner. Second, a fiscal plan should be flexible in the sense that new projects can be added or incumbent projects can be eliminated due to concurrent circumstances. Finally, a fiscal plan should be vulnerable to reflect the limitations of local governments in meeting their commitments due to limited budget and changes in the status quo of their economy.

Wichman [33] studied municipal water pricing practices by examining their efficiency, equity, and cost-recovery trade-offs using an unbalanced panel data set of annual utility rate structures and municipal finance information for 732 households in the states of Georgia (2008–2019) and North Carolina (2010–2019). The data collected annually contained information related to water and wastewater service bills, the number of water users, water sources, and the type of water rate pricing schemes. The Wichman study showed that the way the water pricing system had been set up in the region of study did not conform to economic theories and failed to reach a balanced budget. The findings of the study also revealed that marginal costs of water and wastewater services were higher for low levels of water users, and there were substantial disparities between households with different levels of water consumption. Furthermore, the researcher’s analyses showed that water scarcity, on average, led to higher water prices, and revenues received from low-income populations were not enough, which led to budget deficits. Wichman [33] concluded that municipalities should design a two-part water pricing model to maintain efficiency, equity, and cost-recovery.

Warren [34] believed that low-income residents in both middle-sized and small-sized cities in Canada could not afford to pay their water bills. The researcher argued that households in Canada, generally, do not pay attention to their water use because water pricing mechanisms do not successfully capture the true value of water by not considering environmental, social, and economic costs. Instead, water pricing mechanisms account only for operational and maintenance costs, which underestimate the true value of water and discourage conservation and efficient use. Warren [34] declared that residential water and wastewater service prices in the past few decades in many Canadian cities have increased much faster than increases in the consumer price index. The researcher reviewed residential water and wastewater service prices in 93 Canadian cities and found that water and wastewater service prices in 22 of these cities with more than 130,000 low-income households were higher than the international affordability benchmarks for low-income households. Warren [34] showed that the annual water and wastewater service prices for a two-person household in New Brunswick (e.g., Saint John with $1368), Alberta (e.g., Calgary with $1265), and Saskatchewan (e.g., Regina with $1229) were higher and in Newfoundland and Labrador (e.g., Torbay with $300) was lower than any other locations amongst the 93 cities of the study. Similarly to the city of Corner Brook, residents of Torbay pay a flat rate for water and wastewater service in the province. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recommended that water and wastewater service prices for low-income households should be set around five percent of their family’s disposable income [35]. Of the 22 cities, the rate for seven cities in Alberta and for five cities in Saskatchewan was above the OECD’s recommendation [34].

In the next section, we provide the findings of recent research that explored the unsustainable use of urban water consumption in Corner Brook, a middle-sized city based on the provincial scale, located in the western part of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.

4. Empirical Analysis

As mentioned earlier, the current system of residential urban water consumption in the city of Corner Brook is not sustainable. The main reasons for this expression include outdated urban water systems (i.e., water treatment plant and water distribution), lack of water meters installed on houses built prior to 2014, and flat-rate charges for residential water use irrespective of water meter installation. To examine households’ willingness-to-install water meters in the city of Corner Brook, Mireslami [36] conducted a household survey that explored how people thought about water meters and what precluded or supported them from installing ones. During the months of January to March 2024, the researcher successfully collected primary data (i.e., telephone survey) from 100 residents out of 380 calls (i.e., a response rate of 26.3 percent) in the city of Corner Brook. Mireslami [36] was aware of the limitations facing studies with primary data collections. Household survey studies are usually time-and-location variant, and that might cause an inaccurate and insufficient collection of information received from the participants in the survey. For this reason, Mireslami [36] presented and discussed the research findings cautiously. Nevertheless, the research yielded useful information for policymakers and contributed significantly to the literature. The participants in the survey were selected among those who did not have water meters installed at home. The researcher used a dichotomous econometric model to analyze the respondents’ willingness-to-install water meters at their premises by using the contingent valuation (CV) method through specifying a logit regression model. The literature showed that the CV methods (e.g., logit, probit, and Tobit models) are the most widely used approaches in measuring households’ attitudes toward specific subjects (e.g., willingness-to-purchase organic foods, willingness-to-consume certified foods, willingness-to-adopt new technologies, etc.). Although the use of either logit or probit models will yield the same estimation results (i.e., predictions and marginal effects), the selected model is at the discretion of researchers. However, as Greene [37] explained, a difference between the two models can be ascribed to the distribution of error terms, for which a standard normal distribution (probit models) and a standard logistic distribution (for logit models) is used. Mireslami [36] developed the following logit model to measure households’ willingness-to-install water meters on their premises.

Table 1. Descriptions of variables used in the regression model.

Variable Name	Description	Expected Sign
WTA IWM	1 if the household was willing to accept installation of water meter, 0 otherwise	—
gen	1 if the participant was male, 0 otherwise	−
age1	1 if the participant was Under 30 years old, 0 otherwise	+
age2	1 if the participant was Between 30 and 65 years old, 0 otherwise	+
age3	1 if the participant was 65 years and older, 0 otherwise	+
marit	1 if the participant was married, 0 otherwise	+
fsz1	1 if the participant was from 1 member family size, 0 otherwise	−
fsz2	1 if the participant was from 2 member family size, 0 otherwise	−
fsz3	1 if the participant was from 3 member family size, 0 otherwise	−
edu	1 if the completed level of education was college or university, 0 otherwise	+
emp1	1 if the participant was Employed, 0 otherwise	+
emp2	1 if the participant was Unemployed, 0 otherwise	−
emp3	1 if the participant was Retired, 0 otherwise	−
inc1	1 if the participant was annual Household Income was Below $54,999, 0 otherwise	−
inc2	1 if the participant was annual Household Income was Between $55,000 and $79,999, 0 otherwise	-
inc3	1 if the participant was annual Household Income was $80,000 or above, 0 otherwise	+
wpfam1	1 if the participant was familiar with Water Pricing Structure, 0 otherwise	+
wmgmtc1	1 if the participant was confident in managing water consumption, 0 otherwise	−
wmca1	1 if the participant was aware of Water Meter Cost, 0 otherwise	+
wmsource	1 if the participant was not aware of water meter source to purchase/install, 0 otherwise	−
costcompare1	1 if the participant was Perceived that Paying more for water vs. Other Regions, 0 otherwise	+
costcompare2	1 if the participant was Perceived that Paying less for water vs. Other Regions, 0 otherwise	−
costcompare3	1 if the participant perceived paying about the same for water as other regions, 0 otherwise	−
costcompare4	1 if the participant was not sure that Paying more or less that Other Regions for water, 0 otherwise	−
awusage	1 if the participant was aware of NL’s High Water Usage, 0 otherwise	+
bwmrwc1	1 if the participant was not believed that water meter reducing household, 0 otherwise	−
infwm1	1 if the participant saw government incentives as a factor for water meter installation, 0 otherwise	+
infwm2	1 if the participant saw environmental concerns as a factor, 0 otherwise	+
infwm3	1 if the participant saw cost savings as a factor, 0 otherwise	−
wcedu	1 if the participant was not open to Water Conservation Education, 0 otherwise	−
rhwmi1	1 if the participant saw potential bill increase as a reason to hesitate, 0 otherwise	−
rhwmi2	1 if the participant saw installation cost as a reason to hesitate, 0 otherwise	+
rhwmi3	1 if the participant saw property damage or modifications as a reason to hesitate, 0 otherwise	−
finc	1 if the participant was not willing to contribute financially for water meter, 0 otherwise	−
satisfwp	1 if the participant was satisfied with current water pricing system, 0 otherwise	−
govincent	1 if the participant did not believe in government incentives for water meter installation, 0 otherwise	+
effectivewmc	1 if the participant was believed in effectiveness of WM for W Conservation, 0 otherwise	+

Source: Mireslami [36].

presents descriptions of the dependent and independent variables used in the regression model. The results obtained from the estimation of the parameters of the model enabled the researcher to determine the factors that affected households’ decisions on water meter installation:

$$\begin{array}{cc}{WTA}_{IWM}={\gamma }_0 +& {\gamma }_{1}gen2+ {\gamma }_2 age2+{\gamma }_3 age3+{\gamma }_4 mari+{{\gamma }_5 Fsz2+{ \gamma }_6 Fsz3+\gamma }_7 edu2+{\gamma }_8 emp2\hfill \\ & + {\gamma }_9 emp3+ {\gamma }_{10} inc2+{\gamma }_{11} inc3+{\gamma }_{12} wpfam2+{\gamma }_{13} wmgmtc2+ {\gamma }_{14} wmca2\hfill \\ & + {\gamma }_{15}wmsource2+{\gamma }_{16} costcompare2+{\gamma }_{17} costcompare3+{\gamma }_{18} costcompare4\hfill \\ & +{\gamma }_{19}awusage2+{\gamma }_{20}bwmrwc2+{\gamma }_{21}infwm2 +{\gamma }_{22}infwm3+ {\gamma }_{23}wcedu2+ {\gamma }_{24}rhwmi2\hfill \\ & + {\gamma }_{25}rhwmi3+{\gamma }_{26}finc2+{\gamma }_{27}satisfwp2+{\gamma }_{28}govincent2+{\gamma }_{29}effectivewmc2+{\epsilon }_i\hfill \end{array}$$

Table 2. Summary statistics for the explanatory variables.

Variable Name	Frequency	Mean	S.D.
Gender
gen1 (Female)	52	0.52	0.5021
gen2 (Male)	48	0.48	0.5021
Age
age1 (Under 30 years old)	20	0.2	0.4020
age2 (Between 30 and 65 years old)	67	0.67	0.4726
age3 (65 years and older)	13	0.13	0.3380
Marital Status
marit1 (Single)	51	0.51	0.5024
marit2 (Married)	49	0.49	0.5024
Family Size
fsz1 (1 member)	22	0.22	0.4163
fsz2 (2 members)	35	0.35	0.4794
fsz3 (3 members or more)	43	0.43	0.4976
Education
edu1 (Completed High School or lower)	44	0.44	0.4989
edu2 (Completed College or University degree)	56	0.56	0.4989
Employment Status
emp1 (Employed)	82	0.82	0.3861
emp2 (Unemployed)	6	0.06	0.2387
emp3 (Retired)	12	0.12	0.3266
Annual Household Income
inc1 (Below $54,999)	24	0.24	0.4292
inc2 (Between $55,000 and $79,999)	17	0.17	0.3775
inc3 ($80,000 or above)	59	0.59	0.4943
Familiarity with Water Pricing Structure
wpfam1 (No)	71	0.71	0.4560
wpfam2 (Yes)	29	0.29	0.4560
Confidence in Managing Water Consumption
wmgmtc1 (No)	28	0.28	0.4513
wmgmtc2 (Yes)	72	0.72	0.4513
Awareness of Water Meter Cost
wmca1 (Yes)	8	0.08	0.2727
wmca2 (No)	92	0.92	0.2727
Knowledge of WM Purchase/Installation
wmsource1 (Yes)	6	0.06	0.2387
wmsource2 (No)	94	0.94	0.2387
Perception of Water Costs Compared to Other Regions
costcompare1 (Paying more)	11	0.11	0.3145
costcompare2 (Paying less)	27	0.27	0.4462
costcompare3 (About the same)	13	0.13	0.3380
costcompare4 (Not sure)	49	0.49	0.5024
Awareness of NL’s High Water Usage
awusage1 (Yes)	22	0.22	0.4163
awusage2 (No)	78	0.78	0.4163
Belief in WM Reducing Household Consumption
bwmrwc1 (Yes)	85	0.85	0.3589
bwmrwc2 (No)	15	0.15	0.3589
Influential Factors for WM Installation
infwm1 (Government incentives (e.g., tax rebate))	46	0.46	0.5009
infwm2 (Environmental concerns)	29	0.29	0.4560
infwm3 (Cost savings)	25	0.25	0.4352
Openness to Water Conservation Education
wcedu1 (Yes)	48	0.48	0.5021
wcedu2 (No)	52	0.52	0.5021
Reasons for Hesitation on WM Installation
rhwmi1 (Potential increase in water bills)	59	0.59	0.4943
rhwmi2 (Installation cost)	36	0.36	0.4824
rhwmi3 (Property damage or modifications)	5	0.05	0.2190
Willingness to Contribute Financially to WM
finc1 (Yes)	57	0.57	0.4976
finc2 (No)	43	0.43	0.4976
Satisfaction with Current Water Pricing System
satisfwp1 (No)	11	0.11	0.3145
satisfwp2 (Yes)	89	0.89	0.3145
Government Incentives for WM Installation
govincent1(Yes)	87	0.87	0.3380
govincent2 (no)	13	0.13	0.3380
Effectiveness of WMs for Water Conservation
effectivewmc1 (disagree)	42	0.42	0.4960
effectivewmc2 (agree)	58	0.58	0.4960
interested in installing WM
WTA IWM (Interested in installing WM) (Yes)	31	0.31	0.4648
WTA IWM (Not interested in installing WM) (No)	69	0.69	0.4648

Source: Mireslami [36].

presents summary statistics for the independent variables used in Mireslami’s study. The model examined how age, education level, number of family members, and public awareness about water problems could affect households’ decisions to accept water meters installed at homes. In addition, it provided a clear view of how attitudes toward metering could change based on satisfaction received from the current flat-rate pricing mechanism and whether people had knowledge about the perceived cost of installing water meters. By accounting for all relevant factors, Mireslami’s model captured the way various demographic and attitudinal elements worked together in shaping household decision-making [36]. The researcher’s study showed that the respondents were fairly balanced by gender, mostly aged between 30 and 65, and 69 percent of them did not show a willingness to install water meters at their houses. Almost half of the participants in the survey declared that government incentives could have motivated them, followed by environmental preservation and cost savings to install water meters. When asked about preferred incentive types, rebates or subsidies on water fees came first, followed by partial coverage cost of water meter installation. In addition, 90 percent of the respondents were unfamiliar with the current water pricing mechanism and the installation costs of a water meter, 78 percent were unaware that the province of Newfoundland and Labrador has the highest per capita urban water consumption in Canada. Mireslami [36] indicated that the most resistance was shown by respondents with insufficient knowledge about water bills’ charges after the installation of water meters in the future. Government incentives emerged as the most cited motivator (46 percent), followed by environmental benefits (29 percent) and cost savings (25 percent). On the other hand, fears of higher bills (59 percent) and installation costs (36 percent) were the primary concerns.

Table 3. Estimation results.

Variable Description	Variable Name (Model)	Estimate (p-Value)	Change in Probabiliy (p-Value)
Gender_2	gen2	0.0208 (0.793)	0.0197 (0.793)
Age_2 **	age2 **	0.4457 (0.044)	0.4225 (0.023)
Age_3 **	age3 **	0.9914 (0.034)	0.9397 (0.017)
Marital Status_2	marit2	0.0281 (0.855)	0.0267 (0.856)
Family size_2 ***	fsz2 ***	−0.4617 (0.008)	−0.4377 (0.001)
Family size_3 **	fsz3 **	−0.2770 (0.050)	−0.2626 (0.024)
Education_2 ***	edu2 ***	−0.4596 (0.003)	−0.4357 (0.000)
Employment Status_2	emp2	−0.2804 (0.245)	−0.2658 (0.228)
Employment Status_3 **	emp3 **	−0.3713 (0.072)	−0.3520 (0.046)
Annual Household Income_2	inc2	−0.0728 (0.638)	−0.0691 (0.636)
Annual Household Income_3	inc3	0.0669 (0.630)	0.0635 (0.629)
Familiarity with the W Pricing Structure_2	wpfam2	0.1575 (0.295)	0.1493 (0.280)
Confidence in Managing W Consumption_2	wmgmtc2	0.0935 (0.336)	0.0887 (0.322)
Awareness of WM Cost _2 *	wmca2 *	0.4122 (0.122)	0.3907 (0.096)
Knowledge of WM Purchase/Install-2	wmsource2	−0.1974 (0.486)	−0.1872 (0.480)
Perception of W Costs vs. Other Regions_2	costcompare2	−0.1756 (0.299)	−0.1665 (0.285)
Perception of W Costs vs. Other Regions_3	costcompare3	0.0542 (0.866)	0.0514 (0.866)
Perception of W Costs vs. Other Regions_4	costcompare4	−0.1053 (0.490)	−0.0999 (0.485)
Awareness of NL’s High W Usage_2 ***	awusage2 ***	0.4176 (0.013)	0.3959 (0.002)
Belief in WM Reducing W Consumption_2	bwmrwc2	0.3923 (0.186)	0.3719 (0.161)
Influential Factors for WM Install_2	infwm2	−0.0612 (0.526)	−0.0581 (0.520)
Influential Factors for WM Install_3	infwm3	−0.1589 (0.276)	−0.1507 (0.257)
Openness to W Conservation Education_2	wcedu2	−0.1896 (0.132)	−0.1798 (0.107)
Hesitation for WM Install_2	rhwmi2	0.1015 (0.315)	0.0962 (0.300)
Hesitation for WM Install_3	rhwmi3	−0.2893 (0.251)	−0.2743 (0.235)
Willingness to Contribute Financially_2	finc2	0.1917 (0.140)	0.1818 (0.117)
Satisfaction with the W Pricing System_2 **	satisfwp2 **	−0.6468 (0.055)	−0.6131 (0.032)
Government Incentives for WM Install_2	govincent2	0.669 (0.377)	0.6342 (0.372)
Effect of WM on W Conserv_2 *	effectivewmc2 *	0.2039 (0.092)	0.1933 (0.068)
Dependent variable: WTA IWM (willingness to adopt)
Sample size = 100
McFadden R-squared (Pseudo R–squared).: 0.5986
LR Chi-square: 72.272
Log-Likelihood: −24.228
Degrees of freedom: 29
Note: * Significant at 10% level; ** Significant at 5% level; *** Significant at 1% level

Source: Mireslami [36].

displays the estimated coefficients influencing respondents’ willingness to install water meters along with their corresponding marginal effects. The results of the estimation model reported the McFadden pseudo-R-squared score of 0.599, showing that the model fit well and captured much of the variation in the response, which was coded as 1 when participants in the survey agreed to install water meters, and zero otherwise. The findings of Mireslami’s study showed that willingness to install water meters was shaped by different demographic, economic, and attitudinal variables, which provided in-depth insights into household choices. For example, respondents who were 30–64 and respondents who were more than 65 years of age were 42 percent (p-value 0.023) and 94 percent (p-value 0.017), respectively, more likely to install water meters when compared to those respondents who were less than 30 years of age, as the control group. In contrast, the respondents with more than two children were 26 percent (p-value 0.024) less likely to install water meters due to concerns over higher water bills. Education also had unexpected impacts, as the respondents with college or university degrees were 44 percent less likely (p-value 0.000) than those with a high school diploma or less to support the installation of water meters, possibly because they were more aware of broader issues or were skeptical about how it would be implemented. Mireslami [36] also reported that retired respondents were 35 percent (p-value 0.046) less likely to install water meters when compared to those who were employed, citing it might reflect their financial obligations. The estimation results showed that public awareness about the sustainable use and preservation of urban water through water meter installation was as important as the knowledge of the installation costs and the mechanism of calculating water bills. Respondents who had knowledge of installation costs were 39 percent (p-value 0.096) more likely to accept water meter installation. In addition, those participants in the survey who knew about the high per capita residential water consumption in the region were 40 percent (p-value 0.002) more likely to install water meters. In contrast, satisfaction with the current flat-rate billing mechanism reduced willingness to install water meters by 61 percent (p-value 0.032). Respondents who believed meters could conserve water use were 19 percent (p-value 0.068) more likely to install water meters. In summary, Mireslami [36] expressed that households’ decisions regarding the installation of water meters in the city of Corner Brook were shaped by a combination of demographic and attitudinal variables. The researcher also concluded that the insights from their research could help policymakers take targeted steps to increase the installation of water meters, which, in turn, promote the idea of a sustainable water management system in the region.

5. Conclusions and Policy Implications

Sustainable economic development is a controversial issue for every region, including middle-sized cities. In this context, the important point is how societies achieve the goals of sustainable economic development in a multi-dimensional framework, such as social, human, economic, and environmental. This study focuses on two out of the four pillars of sustainable economic development: economic and environment. The findings of Section 4 of this study showed that the city of Corner Brook in western Newfoundland failed to use urban water and wastewater services in a sustainable way. Previous studies have also reported the same conclusions for other small- and middle-sized cities in Canada [33,34]. Substantial reforms are required in water and wastewater service pricing mechanisms for both small- and middle-sized cities in Canada. Warren [34] reported that several municipalities (e.g., Edmonton, Hamilton, Saskatoon, etc.) have already begun to revise water and wastewater service pricing mechanisms in their regions. These municipalities have set a two-tiered water price system that distinguishes between water use for households’ essential water needs (lower rates) and other imperative water use, such as filling swimming pools and watering lawns (higher rates). Several pricing and non-pricing reasons can justify such a statement. Amongst them, the findings of this study identified a lack of a variable-rate water billing mechanism for residential urban water consumption that otherwise may motivate households to carefully monitor their water use. If water user fees are well-designed, it yields several advantages including improve conservation and water quality, and provide essential fund infrastructure [38]; outdated urban water preservation technology in treatment plant, maintenance, and network distribution; insufficient public knowledge about water conservation; inability to recover both capital and operational costs of providing water services due to the current fix-rate billing mechanism; non-transparent, to some extent, water management policies in protecting water resources; inadequate willingness to engage in pro-environmental adoption of water meter installation, indicating failure in perceived environmental benefits of using sustainable fresh water; insufficient educational curricula with respect to environmental problems including water conservation at different pre- and post-secondary education levels in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador; and the remissness of local government to the concept of climate change in all environmental impact assessments (i.e., strategic, regional, project-level and cumulative, and social), added other obstacles to the sustainable economic development for the region of the study.

As is understood from the above discussion, a movement toward a sustainable society from both economic and environmental dimensions requires a collaboration between the residents and the local government of the city of Corner Brook. To encourage the residents to install water meters on their premises, the local government should offer financial incentives, including, but not limited to, subsidies on the installation of water meters and tax rebates for adopters. Such policies have already been practiced by both federal and provincial governments in Canada. For example, the federal government offers the Canada Greener Homes Grant for monetary compensation to both households and business firms to help offset energy costs [39]. The federal government also offers a GST/HST rebate for new housing and primary residents [40]. The government of New Brunswick offers incentive programs (e.g., energy rebates) for using energy efficiently through a program called the Enhanced Energy Savings Program, which upgrades, insulates, and ventilates housing at no cost to its residents. The government of New Brunswick also offers comprehensive home improvements for its residents under the Total Home Energy Savings Program [41]. In addition, social media has been used extensively to reach out to communities, educating them about perceived environmental benefits as a result of water conservation programs for both current and future generations. Some examples of these programs are changes in the residents’ behavioral water consumption (e.g., repairing leaks, low-flow showerheads, dual-flush toilets, rainwater harvesting systems, toilet tank displacement devices, irrigation controllers, faucet aerators, sprinkler heads, water-saving garden hoses, etc.), equipping advanced technologies, and water-saving landscaping to assist in conserving water [42]. When estimating water and wastewater service prices municipalities should contemplate all private (operations, maintenance, capital) and social costs (associated with protecting water resources) using a social lifecycle assessment approach [43,44], estimate current and future revenue streams from all sources (e.g., user and development fees, property taxes and government grants, and fire protection charges), set up user fees as supplemental revenues to close the funding gap stemming from underestimating full-cost recovery costs and the current water and wastewater service price, and continuously re-evaluate water price over time to taking inflation into account [38]. Local government should attempt to raise public awareness and advise them to be environmentally conscious on water meter installation on their premises, for it not only protects the region’s ecosystems but also encourages everyone to deliberately choose a sustainable lifestyle. Finally, as for areas for future research, we intend to examine barriers to water sustainability and its components by conceptualizing and developing a model in the field of urban political ecology or behavioral theory using the primary data that were collected for this study.