Nightlife: backstory vibes. [part 2]
What happens with the economy when the economists are sleeping?
When the clock strikes and the lights go out, some of the world’s most iconic cities come alive. Whisky bars, jazz clubs, and spectacular cabarets are only a few of the main attractions, and visitors will have no trouble finding after-hours entertainment. Why should we care about the night-time economy? It excites me to have come across an idea for night time, that will — inspire me to write about the nightlife of cities and the night-time economy. The concept for Nightlife Cities was born at 11:11 pm a little while back while reading Umberto Eco’s “The Role Of The Reader” (“Lector In Fabula”). I’ve learned a lesson over the last couple of years: reading a book sparks valuable daydreaming and brainstorming. A couple of weeks ago, I read some articles “Writing the city spatially,” that convinced me to read more, mostly by finding “hidden minutes” during the day. Before I started Jane Jacobs’ book, I finished Steven Pinker’s “The Blank Slate” by committing to reading at least one/two chapter every single night before bed. No matter how late my other activities — productive (university work, research, socializing) or otherwise (online video, articles about economics or sports) — kept me up, I’d read at least one/two chapter. So with “creative class,” I began to bring the book with me on the bus and pick it up at home in the end of the week. The first goal is being accomplished as I’m reading many more pages per day. But I didn’t expect the side benefit: my mind wanders when I read, and it wanders to perfect places. Places like an old friend I want to communicate with, a high priority to-do I forgot about, or an idea for a new book. My mind doesn’t wander like this when I’m on a light day usually.
My attention indeed strays, but it strays based on stimuli in front of my eyes, not in the back of my mind, and these afternoon-delivered diversions are usually not a high priority. This realization seems essential. We all know that it’s good to read, but I’m starting to understand better why...
I love the #cityscience the way I love night-time.
People are flawed, they have a weakness, they fail, and they harm one another, but we’re still better off with people in our lives. The City is flawed, it has a weakness, it sometimes fails to achieve its original purpose of creating a connection, and it can harm us by making information abundant but truth unclear. Anyway, we’re still better off with the Urban in our lives.
Nightlife Cities concept is less and less something that we can choose to avoid or that we incorporate into our lives only by choice. It’s becoming a part of humanity itself, a central building block of society the same way people and ideas are building blocks of society. To contend with our flawed understanding, we have always discussed city development in ways that help us understand and improve it. In the modern age, we must include the night-time economy in the discussions we have about politics, economics, psychology, romance, and everything else. My love for cities’ night-time is just like my love for the #CityScience: it’s about people and their variety. Cities are humanity’s habitat…
They’re not our only habitat, but they support our species in all its forms, often with different forms side by side, better than any other environment. In Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs quotes Harvard professor Paul J. Tillich on how the diversity of cities affects the people who live in them: By its nature, the big cities provide what otherwise could be given only by travelling; namely, the strange. Since the peculiar leads to questions and undermines familiar tradition, it serves to elevate reason to ultimate significance.
The big city is devoted to pieces, each of which is observed, purged, and equalized. The mystery of the strange and the critical rationality of citizen are both removed from the city?!
