Improving Social Outcomes in Urban Development: A Playbook for Practitioners

The World Economic Forum and Avison Young developed a Social Value Playbook to address systemic challenges in urban development, such as the cost-of-living crisis and social polarization. The guide outlines six core principles: fostering local ecosystems, balancing certainty with flexibility, building social outcomes into design, prioritizing social value in partner selection, monitoring alignment with objectives, and embedding long-term stewardship. It emphasizes moving from prescriptive 'outputs' to meaningful 'outcomes' and provides case studies from the UK, Canada, the US, and Türkiye to illustrate these principles in practice.

• Social value in the built environment is defined as the cumulative benefit of all social impacts on individuals, communities, and businesses, and is created when infrastructure supports environmental, economic, and social well-being to improve quality of life.
• Practitioners face three primary systemic challenges in creating social value: difficulty in defining social outcome objectives versus simple outputs, a lack of innovation due to rigid project scopes and partner selection based on price, and the absence of formal governance for long-term stewardship as ownership changes.
• To drive urban development, stakeholders should foster local ecosystems by aligning on a common vision, enabling community-led proposals, and utilizing 'meanwhile uses'—repurposing vacant spaces for community programs before construction begins.
• Urban projects require a balance between the certainty needed by investors to evaluate financial risk and the flexibility to adapt to social changes, which can be managed through project charters or development agencies insulated from political cycles.
• Social value should be embedded in project design by replacing prescriptive output specifications with outcome-based objectives derived from feasibility studies and co-design models with the community.
• Partner selection processes should prioritize social value creation over maximizing land value or financial benefit, using weighted criteria in requests for proposal (RFPs) to ensure partners can deliver social goals.
• Effective monitoring of social outcomes requires project-specific decision-making tools and KPIs that balance social, environmental, and economic parameters to identify trade-offs and co-benefits.
• Long-term 'legacy social value' is maintained through ongoing stewardship, which can be formalized via community charters, the formation of multistakeholder networks, or selecting owners with long-term perspectives such as local government pension funds.

APA

World Economic Forum (2024). Improving Social Outcomes in Urban Development: A Playbook for Practitioners. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Improving_Social_Outcomes_in_Urban_Development_2024.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Improving Social Outcomes in Urban Development: A Playbook for Practitioners. 2024. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Improving_Social_Outcomes_in_Urban_Development_2024.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Improving Social Outcomes in Urban Development: A Playbook for Practitioners |date=August 2024 |url=https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Improving_Social_Outcomes_in_Urban_Development_2024.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2024improving, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Improving Social Outcomes in Urban Development: A Playbook for Practitioners}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2024}, month = aug, url = {https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Improving_Social_Outcomes_in_Urban_Development_2024.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }