The Foundational Economy

This research stream looks at FE provisioning emphasising the supply side. It examines how essential material infrastructures — water, mobility, housing, energy — constitute the physical substrate of citizenship and territorial cohesion. Furthermore it integrates existing FE work on the materiality of places with new comparative research on governance arrangements that sustain (or undermine) long-term investment, maintenance, and equitable access across diverse territorial contexts. 

The stream addresses four core challenges: first, why formally uniform national frameworks produce radically divergent infrastructure outcomes from metropolitan centres to peripheral areas; second, how financialization, short political cycles, and technological acceleration conflict with the inherently long-term logics of infrastructure provision; third, which catalytic institutions — regulatory models, participatory mechanisms, ownership forms — enable democratic accountability in monopolistic sectors. Fourth, how to organise the financing of foundational infrastructure in a post-growth era for a spatially and socially just development?

Discover more in the references below.

To join the conversation: filippo.barbera@unito.it, David.Bassens@vub.be, angelo.salento@unisalento.it

Readings:

• Barbera, F. (2024) ‘Material and “providential” social infrastructures: A foundational economy perspective’. In: Renner, A.T., Plank, L. and Getzner, M. (eds.) Handbook of Social Infrastructure. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 350–363.

• Bassens, D., Froud, J., Johal, S. and Williams, K. (2025) ‘Geography, the foundational economy, and the fallen-below’, Dialogues in Human Geography. https://doi.org/10.1177/20438206251388515.
• Calafati, L., Froud, J., Haslam, C., Johal, S. and Williams, K. (2025) Murky Water. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• Calafati, L., Froud, J., Haslam, C., Johal, S. and Williams, K. (2024) ‘Place and mobility in Wales: Challenges and opportunities for reducing car use’, Local Economy, 38(8), pp. 773–793. https://doi.org/10.1177/02690942241279556.
• Engelen, E., Froud, J., Johal, S., Salento, A. and Williams, K. (2017) ‘The grounded city: From competitivity to the foundational economy’, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 10(3), pp. 407–423. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsx016.
• Riepl, T., Schaffartzik, A., Grabow, S. and Banabak, S. (2025) ‘Living well with the foundational economy: Assessing the spatial accessibility of foundational infrastructures in Vienna’, Ecological Economics, 232, 108558. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2025.108558.
• Salento, A. and Susani, S. (2023) ‘Public engineering and the future of infrastructures: Lessons from the Italian motorway system?’, Foundational Economy Working Paper 13. Available at: https://foundationaleconomy.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/public-engineering-and-infrastructure-wp13.pdf. 
• Schafran, A., Smith, M.N. and Hall, S. (2020) The Spatial Contract: A New Politics of Provision for an Urbanized Planet. Manchester: Manchester University Press.