Politics of social value in the built environment

The built environment can have a major impact on people’s economic prospects, health and wellbeing, and affect their everyday lived experiences. Additionally, due to their high costs, construction investments, which shape the built environment, involve high opportunity costs for society. Following from an increasing awareness of these issues, social value has become a rapidly growing area of research and practice in the built environment, accompanied by policy interest. Despite its popularity, theoretical engagement with the concept of 'social value' has been very limited. Particularly, so far, the politics emerging from subjectivity of value(s) have been either ignored or mentioned in a broad-brushed manner. However, the politics need to be considered at the core of any debates relating to social value due to the tensions between different views involved in conceptualising/analysing, creating/implementing and realising/experiencing social value. To address this gap, this paper introduces three types of politics of social value: analytical politics, participatory politics and lived politics. By clarifying these types of politics that are key to any social value consideration in the built environment, this will allow a deeper and more democratic engagement with the concept of social value.