Public-private actors’ networks in healthy urban development and investment decision-making

Improving social wellbeing has become a real estate commercial priority. Social value is increasingly considered an attribute of investment risk-return and decision-making in global capital flows into investment assets that influence health and wellbeing. Urban production and reproduction of the urban environment is a social and cultural process shaped and regulated by practices and the ‘collective action’ of a complex assemblage of private and public social actors. Within the assemblage of social actors, are significantly knowledgeable real estate professionals, influential agents and public service providers with interests in healthy urban production. However, little is known about competing constructs of health benefits between public and private stakeholders upstream and downstream in urban production which influence investment appraisal and decision-making. We review using systems approach the complexity of social actors’ interactions in pursuit of the (re)production of healthier urban environments. The sample is drawn from real estate service providers, investment companies and public authorities associated with mixed-use schemes in Bristol and Manchester city case studies. The results inform better understanding of how investors’ perceptions of inward firm benefit from and outward contribution to community quality of life are embedded in investment appraisal models and decision-making. The findings could contribute to improved transparency in the disclosure of health information in investment appraisals and decisions for the benefit of both private and public stakeholders.