ABSTRACT
Supply of sufficient quantities of potable water having adequate quality attributes, the bane of urban administrators in developing and developed countries alike, was a recurrent source of aggravation to residents and governments of Port-au-Prince. Major investments in sources of supply and distribution systems, followed by inadequate maintenance and population growth, periodically conspired to lower consumption quantity and quality, to produce protests by irate citizens, and to push governments into taking remedial action. In 1841 newspapers complained bitterly about the feeble quantity and unacceptable quality of water flowing out of public standpipes, the only method of distribution at the time, and government responded two years later with a major project to repair old standpipes and add new ones. The difficulty was that in a political economy that often converted food and water from final into productive acts of consumption, matters of shelter were relatively unimportant to many members of the ordinary class.
