Who Killed the Night: Are our cities providing the right canvas for forming new relationships?

“We are talking a lot about what is ‘dead’ in nightlife, rather than talking about the future: what is new, what is coming.” - Julieta Cuneo

Are our cities and their nightlife changing for the worse, or are they just evolving to meet modern tastes? When they were first launched, dating apps were originally intended to augment and supplement the existing ways that we might meet someone. One of the challenges of this is that some of the places that would traditionally be fruitful hunting grounds in the West for looking for a date - bars, pubs and nightclubs - have been in decline.

Should we lament the death of nightclubs and traditionally alcohol-fueled venues, or are they as old-fashioned and irrelevant as the 1970s mirrored disco dancehall (Reflex aside) is today? What can (and should) the government do to protect our social infrastructure, or should we just let nature take its course? That’s what I wanted to ask our guest, Julieta Cuneo. Julieta is a public policy expert, specialising in cities and the night-time economy. She has worked as a journalist and in several think tanks researching and developing urban policy. She has also worked in Parliament and currently works for the Mayor of London on night-time policy and strategy. I want to ask her about how much government should intervene in sculpting the spaces that are often the backdrop to city life and love.

The history of increasing urbanisation has been a long one, yet during the Covid pandemic many people moved out to the countryside, and people wondered if cities would ever recover. Julieta and I discussed he rich history of communal meeting and trading spaces in London. Coffee houses were where you met new business contacts, financed new ventures and bought insurance to hedge the risk.

Trade unions and political parties used to be mass participation events. For example, trade union membership in the UK has been steadily decreasing, with a notable drop from 13.2 million members in 1995 to around 6.5 million in 2020. In the past, they were popular ways for young people to meet like-minded people for friendships and relationships, and they eventually got replaced by something more fun, exciting and subversive. The advantage of these meeting spaces over modern apps and platforms is that they introduced a stochastic element to whom you might meet: a randomness that you could meet anyone, which is especially useful if you are open-minded and don’t have a strong preconception of what you are looking for.

Hospitality venues have faced other challenges that just the changing tastes of their customer base of course: the cost of living crisis, high business rates, energy bills and employment taxes, and the changing working and socialising patterns causes by the reemergence from the Covid lockdowns. Cultural spaces have also suffered from their own form of ‘long Covid’, with reports of galleries and theatres having to close their doors as they can no longer make ends meet. Julieta spoke about how the face of city nightlife has changed before, and it is changing to meet modern needs - more gaming cafes, escape rooms and daytime parties than late night pub sessions and raves. “This is a worldwide trend that nightlife and its spaces are evolving, from Buenos Aires to Hong Kong.”

Nightclubs, in particular, were in decline long before the Big C hit in March 2020. Is bemoaning the death of the 1990s-style nightclub rave as inconsequential as lamenting the fact that there aren’t (currently until Colossal intervene) any dodos to get a selfie with? Perhaps this closure of older nightlife venues is merely the remorseless scythe of changing demand dynamics meeting free market economics: when old businesses are no longer needed by the public, they close and are replaced with things that people actually want. The ‘Invisible Hand’ at work, nothing to be concerned about. Julieta agrees that changing tastes have been a challenge for some: “The business model only works for some  venues with the volume sale of alcohol.” No booze, just bubble tea makes the club promoter a dull boy.

We discussed one of the seeming barriers behind young-people’s reluctance to go out at night in the same way that previous generations did: concerns about personal safety, particularly for women. The ‘spiking epidemic’ caused great online concern in 2021, just as venues were being allowed to lift up their shutters following lockdown closures. The Labour Government has made tackling violence against women and girls one of its ‘Missions’ for government. This has partly been led by regulating cultural and social spaces that facilitate the nighttime economy, as well as looking to reduce online harms through regulating online forums through the Online Safety Act. Julieta and I discussed the challenges of implementing the ‘Ask for Angela’ scheme in London hospitality venues, however well-meaning its inception. Schemes like that need awareness and they need to work, in order to be effective. People won’t go out, if they don’t feel safe.

My primary concern with losing our communal cultural, hospitality and nightlife spaces in our towns and cities is that we are losing the environment, the canvas, where business, social and romantic interactions would normally take place. With these public hangouts and watering holes gone, my concern is that people are being driven online to meet on the apps and social media platforms, even is they really would prefer some IRL interaction. Julieta is sanguine about this, as she believes that there are still places for the curious to find their social niches, their tribe, with common things of interest to bond over.

She is less forgiving when I enquire as to her personal experience of dating apps. Which she has never used, despite being repeatedly advised by friends that she was missing a trick. Julieta would rather meet people and connect in real life. I asked about her parents meeting via flamenco dancing in Buenos Aires (romcom material alert), and how this compares to modern nightlife and app usage in her native Argentina. When I asked if it was a simpler time, she said both eras have their own energy: "When we're going out, we say we're 'salir de fiesta'." Hopefully, there'll be plenty of real-life parties to look forward to.