# Call for submissions

The Municorn Review No. 1
URL: https://municorn.us/review/call-for-submissions/
By: Ammar Plumber
Published: 2026-09-17
Tags: publishing

> **Cite as:** Municorn.us, "Call for submissions", Municorn water loss index, https://municorn.us/review/call-for-submissions/.
> **Licence:** CC BY 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ — reuse and redistribution are permitted with attribution to Municorn.us and a link to this URL.
> **Caveat that must travel with these figures:** "Water loss" is at least three different quantities depending on the jurisdiction, and nothing here supports a comparison between states.

Utility financial management is about more than the numbers. We're seeking observant remarks on the big picture.

Who's responsible for a system everyone depends on and no one can opt out of?
What happens when a model built around pipes and pumps stops capturing the risks
a utility actually faces, like cyber exposure? How should a utility with finite
capital decide which risks to act on first?

We want short pieces that take questions like these seriously. A few areas we're
interested in:

```theme Governing what we share
Everyone benefits from a functioning system, but responsibility for keeping it
that way is diffuse. What institutions sustain investment in something no one
fully owns and everyone depends on?
cf: Ostrom's work on commons and Frischmann's *Infrastructure* both bear on the
question.
```

```theme When the model drifts from the risk
Rate formulas and asset models tend to reflect what could be measured when they
were built, usually the physical system. Risks that don't fit that frame tend to
go unpriced entirely, not just underpriced. What happens when updating the inputs
isn't enough because the model itself leaves whole categories of risk out?
cf: Scott's *Seeing Like a State* is relevant here.
```

```theme Accountability without exit
Competitive markets can discipline bad management through exit: customers leave.
A monopoly removes that option. Ratepayers instead depend on boards, regulators,
elections, public meetings, and other forms of oversight in a field that's
difficult for outsiders to scrutinize. What does accountability look like with
the usual lever gone?
cf: Hirschman's *Exit, Voice, and Loyalty*.
```

```theme Choosing what to fix first
Capital budgets are finite, and maintenance needs don't arrive in priority order.
A utility has to decide between a corroding main, an aging SCADA system, and a
treatment plant upgrade, usually with imperfect information about all three.
cf: Jacobs' guardian/commercial distinction in *Systems of Survival* raises a
related question about which institutional logic governs those decisions.
```

```theme The cost of things working
Prevention's value is a disaster that never happens, which is hard for anyone to
price or credit. The better a system runs, the weaker the case for continuing to
pay for it looks. Then it stops running.
cf: Susan Leigh Star on infrastructure; Borgmann on concealment.
```

```theme The arithmetic of being small
Treatment plants and mains don't shrink in proportion to the customer base. Below
a certain density, good management can only do so much. The economics themselves
become the problem.
cf: Strong Towns has written extensively about infrastructure liabilities at low
densities.
```

```theme What the work is for, from the inside
MacIntyre's distinction between goods internal to a practice and the external
rewards attached to it looks different depending on who's doing the work:
whoever's supposed to be tracking asset condition and never quite sets up the
system to do it, a crew member who knows which main is about to go before any
sensor does, a director choosing what actually gets funded this capital cycle.
cf: Dunne's *Back to the Rough Ground* and Kevin Majeres' work on bringing ideals
into ordinary work are both worth a look here.
```

```theme Stewardship
Standard discounting gives future costs less weight in present-value terms, while
many of the people who will bear those costs have no say in today's decisions.
cf: Leopold wrote about exactly this kind of obligation, to something you don't
own outright and won't be around to answer for.
```

---

Other topics are welcome too.

Pitches and drafts to [ammar@municorn.us](mailto:ammar@municorn.us). Short is
fine.

Cite as: Plumber, A. “Call for submissions.” The Municorn Review 1 (2026).

_Municorn.us · https://municorn.us/review/call-for-submissions/ · CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/_

---