Cities after dark: economy, culture, sociality and safety

Speakers: 

__ Lutz Leichsenring, press spokesman Clubcommission Berlin
__ Emily Clancy, Vice Mayor in charge of Cities After Dark, Municipality of Bologna
__ Cosimo Guccione, Councillor in charge of Cities After Dark, Municipality of Florence
__ Simone d’Antonio, Lead Expert URBACT network Cities After Dark

Moderator: Valeria Verdolini, CheFare

Few metropolises are painted as true "cities that never sleep," yet Italian small towns also have a rather lively nightlife, often at the center of conflict and political polarization. While living time has expanded, with shifts and jobs spanning the entire day, the pandemic has certainly contracted and changed times, habits and reduced social spaces.

In the face of these transformations of urban biorhythms, in public agendas, the night is often relegated to nightclubbing, the term often used with a negative connotation. Yet it is in the nights and the spaces dedicated to it where cultural and subcultural productions capable of activating relationships, exchanges, economies have always been formed. What is the conflict about then?

While we have increasingly witnessed the contrast between a right to rest and a right to entertainment, the urban night, in addition to the different uses of public spaces - influenced by the process of touristification - has also been formed as a possible space of insecurity, a space with a strong gendered connotation, which is accompanied by an increase in risks and vulnerabilities for those who pass through the city in the twilight hours.

How do we shape a right to the city for all and everyone at all times of the day?  What are we talking about when we speak of “economy of the night”? What can we learn from local and international experiences? How does reflecting on night also mean thinking about the city, tourism, social relations and community? How can local governments break out of emergency logic and design (and govern) a right to the city at night?

The meeting aims to explore these issues, starting from the concrete experiences of some Italian contexts and from the Berlin experience, to then try and offer an analysis of the night,of  its economy, and of its problems, not only in alarmist terms but also highlighting the many treasures that that time of life can offer to territories.