Night is a foundational element of human and animal life on earth, but its interaction with the social world has undergone significant transformations during the era of globalization. As the economic activity of the 'daytime' city has advanced into the night, other uses of the night as a time for play, for sleep or for escaping oppression have come increasingly under threat.

This book looks at the relationship between night and society in contemporary cities. It identifies that while theories of 'planetary urbanization' have traced the spatial spread of urban forms, the temporal expansion of urban capitalism has been less well mapped. It argues that, as a key part of planetary being, understanding what goes on at night in cities can add nuance to debates on planetary urbanization.

A series of practices and spaces that we encounter in the night-time city are explored. These include: the maintenance and repair of infrastructure; the aesthetics of the urban night; nightlife and the night-time economy; the home at night; and the ecologies of the urban night. Taking these forward the book will ask whether the night can reveal some of the boundaries to what we call 'the urban' in a world of cities, and will call for a revitalized and enhanced 'nightology' to study these limits.

About the Author
Robert Shaw is a lecturer in geography at Newcastle University, UK. He received his PhD from Durham University in 2012, and he subsequently worked at Durham until 2015, before joining Newcastle. With his research interests in the urban night, he has explored the production of night-time city life in the UK, changing street-lighting technologies and most recently the Nuit Debout protest movement in Paris. His work has also been published in several academic journals. His personal webpage is www.rob-shaw.net, and he can be found on Twitter as @WhatIsRobShaw.

Reviews

"Shaw's book explores the way humans interface with the darkness that night brings while making the argument that the night should be, in and of itself, an object of research. The book takes the reader on a journey over time and space through the urban night. Throughout the book issues of race, gender, and sexuality are addressed. While the author notes there are "some gaps", this book provides a fairly comprehensive survey of geographical and social theories and research about the human experience at night. Further chapters in the book introduce such concepts as light pollution, nocturnal ecologies, the night-time economy, and the domestic night. The range of topics covered outlines just how much the night has an effect on both humans and ecological systems within the urban environment. -Robert Shaw, The Nocturnal City (London: Routledge, 2018), pp. 126, ISBN: 9781138676404

'This book challenges any simple definitions of the urban night, and takes the reader on an intellectual journey around the boundaries of what is much more than cities in the hours of darkness [..] It will help shape future research on the sustainable nocturnal city, a field which not only requires much further scholarly engagement, but would especially benefit from interdisciplinary work, across transport and mobility, human-animal relations, migration studies, to name but a few. I particularly enjoyed the fact that the night as experienced in public, in collective urban spaces, is set aside at one point, and a chapter is dedicated to the domestic night. [..] I feel it makes a strong case for further engagement with the under-researched questions of how we continue to inhabit the urban once we close our front doors, and how these domestic modes of being in the city at night are urban in very different ways.'

- Dr Anna Plyushteva, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium

Book Information
ISBN 9780367894818
Author Robert Shaw
Format Paperback
Page Count 126
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 250g