Introduction

Facts at hand, night-time governance seems to have been taking off in several cities around the planet, perhaps not as comprehensively as a truly ‘global’ movement, but certainly as a more and more visible international trend. Yet, where is the NTE governed? For us, the question of how night-time governance is ‘placed’ in respect to the organization of urban governance more generally is an essential one, especially for the many municipal practitioners and urban researchers focusing on this theme. Nuance, of course, would be required here so as not to simply pigeonhole styles of governance into easy categories. However, in this second empirical chapter, we suggest that it might be useful to start from a broad generalization: should the night-time be the purview of local government within the edifice of city policy, or should it be set outside of it? Of course, there is no easy answer to this query, but this simple differentiation helps us, we think, chart some commonplace realities within the multitude of examples we present here. Both realities emerge as equally productive and, at the same time, characterized by tensions, but in the meantime, they also help us clarify some initial challenges that night-time practitioners confront when trying to project a pragmatic stance on recognizing the value of night-time discussions in urban governance. In turn, as we illustrate, this also takes us to an additional type of night-time governance institution, that of the night ‘council’ (or ‘committee’ or ‘commission’), which is perhaps as important in our story as the more widely chronicled and media-prone appointment of night mayors. We offer an initial typology of these institutions before beginning an initial foray into the common agendas that, whether within or outside local government, are emerging in night-time governance.

Where should the night-time be governed?

Who speaks for the night-time in cities? As we highlighted in Chapter 2, a growing aspect of night-time governance that has become a feature in discussions across many cities is the role of a dedicated representative for each respective city's night-time agenda. The position of the ‘night mayor’ has fast become well known.