the death of nightlife

The modern utopian dream of the model city wants to stay open, totally. In this place there are no curfews; transport runs all night; bankers working foreign stock exchanges go to dinner after trading; comedy writers drink litres of coffee and order takeout; and live music plays through the evening.

In 2001, Tony Blair ran for PM on a platform of ke... See more

However, amid the AM -ification of cities and culture, there is light in the darkness. We are beginning to understand what we lose when we reject the night. Policies to keep cities open round-the-clock have been picking up steam since Amsterdam began issuing 24-hour operating licenses in 2013. The idea of cultivating night time economies has since ... See more

“Something that police or other city decisionmakers don’t understand is that vibrancy in the city creates safety,” Leichsenring said.

In New South Wales, Australia, residents reported feeling safer on public transit and in their neighborhoods after an effort by the state to reverse Sydney’s well-known “party pooper” reputation through a 24-Hour Economy Commissioner.

“If you want to create cultural vibrancy in a city, it’s not just about consumption of alcohol,” says Lutz Leichsenring, a spokesman and executive board member for the Clubcommission Berlin who co-founded VibeLab with Milan. “You need to have a creative space that is both affordable and accessible. Public transportation needs to be accessible for p... See more

The youth belong at the rave, at the block party, in the mosh pit, loitering in the park at midnight.

So I will risk sounding like an old raver shaking her cane to note that subcultures, even the vapid ones, used to tie their participants to people and places. Getting into a scene could be work; it required figuring out whom to talk to, or where to go, and maybe hanging awkwardly around a record store or nightclub or street corner until you got sco... See more

Stark reminder of the parlous state of afterdark subculture in so many cities around the world. In the UK, for instance, 75% of nightclubs have shut since 2005 (75%!) - and, truth be told, so much of what survives is very corporate and highly contrived.

They say nothing good happens after 2am (or is it midnight?), but in the case of creativity, that... See more