High Costs, Safety Fears Leave Urban Nightlife in Decline
Also today: New minimum energy standards for affordable housing in the US, and why Austin’s glow is fading.
A wave of closures in London in recent years add weight to the charge of a city-after-dark in decline.
In a recent post on X, Mayor Sadiq Khan boasted that London "is leading the world in its 24-hour-policy." But critics were quick to point out that the city’s nightlife is in decline. Thousands of nightclubs, bars and restaurants across the metro region have shut down since 2020. And experts say the deterioration long precedes Covid. It also echoes far beyond London and the UK.
From Montreal to Sydney, soaring rents, safety concerns and noise complaints are dimming cities’ after-dark economies despite a global push for polices to keep businesses open round-the-clock. But nightlife advocates aren’t going down quietly, Marc Daniel Davies reports. Today on CityLab: The Long, Slow Death of Urban Nightlife