‘Live, work, play’? Real estate, you can do better

COMMENT: A long time ago, I visited a distant relative in a South American prison (it was white-collar crime, before I lose you). What stayed with me were two things. One, he played tennis — yes, tennis — every single day. Maybe more than once a day. Second, he was running an interesting jewellery-making business from prison, giving employment to himself and some of his jailbird friends – and possibly lining the pockets of the warden.  All in all, we can safely say he lived there, worked there, played there. Live, work, play. Does that sound familiar? Do an internet search for “live work play”. What do you see? Nearly nine billion results. It is true, these three words are deeply embedded in our lexicon. The news tab shows countless headlines about mixed-use developments and townships “hoping to combine the live, work, play” lifestyle.  Type in “live work play logo”, and you see how many cities and developments have adopted this as their mantra — Downtown Orlando, Palm Beach (come on, Florida, twice?), Anchorage, New South Wales. There are even live, work, play off-the-shelf logos on image libraries. It is inescapable, like those little, neatly tied-up bags of dog poo people seem to not be able to throw away. The moth-eaten jumper of slogans Yes, it is a less dry alternative for describing the mixed-use asset class. But why choose it, or some reconstruction of it (Live, work, shop, play. Live, work, study. Live, work, enjoy – and in one case even shop, stay, eat, live, work AND play) as the main statement to represent a new development or city? Imagine if McDonald’s plastered onto a billboard “eat a burger here”, or if Nike espoused simply “wear trainers”. “Live, work, play” is a foundation – the lowest common denominator. It is literally what your customer can do. It does not tell your customer what you do differently, how it benefits them, how you promise to do it better than anyone else, or more importantly why it matters so much to you.  So I was surprised in recent weeks to see variations of live, work, play still playing out as headlines in journalism, rolled out as ‘new’ corporate brand straplines by consultancies, and being reached for by developers like that comfortable old jumper you’ve had for so long but haven’t noticed is more than a little moth-eaten.  We may now be in one of the most important and fascinating times for cities and developers – and they need to realise it is not only safe but imperative to reach for a new narrative.  Cultural impact The pandemic has made us appreciate everything local: our parks, our greengrocer, our schools, our restaurants, bars, and pubs. We are confused about whether working from home is fantastic or if it is just living at work. But neither are we particularly excited by the idea of going back to five days a week of commuting.  We see rampant anxiety and loneliness, and young people in desperate need of role models and mentorship. And the parents among us have learned that while extra time with the kids is a gift, home-schooling drives us around the bend.  All of this has had enough cultural impact to change the way we live, work and play forever. We have seen it impacting architectural design already. The 15-minute city thesis has city planners re-evaluating their masterplans. Developers long on retail centres are reinventing this now unpopular asset class into mixed-use in a big hurry. Live, work, play is no longer a thing. It is just, well, everything. And therefore nothing.  What do we, as an industry, really have to say about how we approach the future of our cities? It is an epic time to re-evaluate, have an opinion, and do things differently, do things better. You have more to say than “live, work, play”. Let’s hear it. Joy Nazzari is founder of dn&co Image © Fred Sierakowski/Shutterstock