The Live, Work, Play Epidemic
All across our fine nation, people are suffering from a silent disease. Day by day this epidemic is claiming more innocent victims.
I am talking, of course, about the Live, Work, Play Epidemic.
Ever-larger numbers of Americans are finding themselves living in buildings that look like this:
“They’re like Denny’s,” said Brad Evans, a Denver artist, of the new buildings. “You could be at a Denny’s in Iowa or New Mexico or Colorado, and you wouldn’t know. You just know that you’re at a Denny’s.”
The same is true of these buildings. The above image from Austin, but it could just as easily be in Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, or Nashville.
Now I love Denny’s as much as the next guy. But do I necessarily want to spend the rest of my life eating in Denny’s? No, I don’t think I would.
This is not an argument against these buildings on aesthetic grounds (though I do find the architecture quite depressing). People need places to live, after all. Any port in a storm.
I am simply pointing out the hilarious irony that many of the places so visibly marketed as being suitable to “live, work, and play” are in fact good at none of those things.
In many cases these buildings are built in the middle of absolutely nowhere. This is especially true in Southern cities like Huntsville, Nashville, Atlanta, Austin, etc.
The label is defensible because the project features something other than just housing - usually a restaurant or two, or maybe a few stores.
And sure, technically you can live, work and play here - as long as your idea of playing is choosing between going to a CrossFit gym and running circles in the massive parking lot. Every day. For the rest of your life.
To actually be a good place to “live, work, play” you need an immense variety of different stuff - more than one could ever jam into a 30 acre site next to the interstate.
To access the rest of what the city has to offer, you need a car, throwing you right back into the suburban development pattern.
But credit where credit’s due - at least the project above has some nice looking architecture.
Ah, shit - nevermind.
Places like this are just taking the typical suburban development pattern and sprinkling some commercial uses in with it. It’s basically a mall with some housing added, or some housing with a store or two added.
If you mix raisins and turds, you’ve still got turds.
If you build mixed use stuff in a car-dependent context, you’re still completely dependent on a car to do most things.
In some ways it’s even worse than a purely single-use suburban environment: It’s all the downsides of dense city living with none of the upsides of the suburbs.
The reason this bothers me is because it feels dishonest. People do want good, walkable, mixed-use places. They’re desperate for them. Developers know this. So they market even the most tragic suburban projects as “Live, Work, Play” and people buy it.
It bothers me because it’s like the person who consistently brags about how humble they are. Or the entrepreneur who shouts about how much good he is doing while committing one of the largest frauds in history.
Usually when someone shouts about how virtuous they are, the best move is to run in the other direction. This is virtue signaling in real estate.
Live, Work, Play projects are to real estate what greenwashed products are to consumer goods and services. The companies know that people eat that shit up, so they slap the term on without the product being different in any meaningful way.
Sorry developers, a Chipotle on the bottom of your new 5-over-1 makes it a good place to “Live, work, and play” in the same way that Ryanair *technically* polluting less than all the other airlines makes them good for the environment.
It’s like saying that sleep deprivation is the best form of torture. That may be technically true, but it’s still torture.
There is Hope!
If you or a loved one have been affected by a building that looks like this - especially if that building sucked you in with a vague promise of “Live, Work, Play” - do not despair. There is hope. A new generation of entrepreneurs are building actual neighborhoods to provide an environment that isn’t completely soul-destroying.
This next generation of neighborhoods will actually be wonderful places to live, work, and play. But you won’t hear anyone shouting about it! Or if you do, run away!
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Until next time,
Joel