Social Infrastructures for Post-Growth Value Generation: School-Based Initiatives in London

This paper investigates the stimulation of value through social infrastructures; it explores the potential of public educational facilities focusing on an initiative in London known as ‘School Superzones’. There is growing attention on how the social underpinnings of places might generate alternative forms of economic value. Given that top-down and growth focused types of interventions fail to deliver on maintaining long-term community wellbeing, social infrastructures might off er a route to non-growth dependent alternatives. As shown in this paper, the telos of School Superzones is the generation of local social value and place-based liveability, and that they open up partnership routes to rework expectations of returns from monetary investments. While they face challenges inherent in existing dependencies and relationships in London, and their wellbeing impacts will take time to evidence, they demonstrate post-growth directions through school partnerships and the importance of nurturing in-kind volunteered eff orts and growing social capital.