Two prominent and alternate approaches, ecosystem service valuation and ecological footprints, link the production of ecosystem services with their consumption by societies. We combined these two approaches to better understand variation in the societal demand and production of freshwater, a critical ecosystem service, for 121 cities in the United States. The analysis linked previously compiled data on urban water use and the spatial distribution of run-off water throughout the conterminous United States to compute heterogeneous urban water use footprints for all 121 cities.