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Seeing in the Dark – Nighttime’s Potential in Urban Innovation

written by Niklas Effenberger
Posted on
read: 11 minutes
  1. Relevant are several articles of the 2019 Special Issue “Temporal Justice in the City. Concepts and Perspectives for Planning Practice” published by the Academy for Territorial Development and Henckel, Dietrich; Kramer, Caroline Eds.; helped me by a lot. Link. ↩ ↩2 ↩3
  2. In line of the idea here. A great read that proposes a radical shift towards a so called ‘consciousness culture’. To foster a future marked by compassion and self-respect . Written by philosopher and neuroscientist Thomas Metzinger (2023): Bewusstseinskultur: Spiritualität, intellektuelle Redlichkeit und die planetare Krise. Berlin Verlag. EAN 978-3-8270-1488-7 ↩ ↩2
  3. Gehl, J. (2010). Cities for People. Island Press. Groundbreaking and visionary book. Gehl’s principles for designing human-centred cities align with the ideas presented here and how urban design can enhance both ecological and social spaces. ↩ ↩2 ↩3
  4. A classic when it comes to Nature-Based Solutions: Kabisch, N., Korn, H., Stadler, J., & Bonn, A. (Eds.). (2017). Nature-Based Solutions to Climate Change Adaptation in Urban Areas: Linkages Between Science, Policy, and Practice (1st ed.). Springer Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56091-5 ↩ ↩2
  5. See: Chausson A et al. (2023) Going beyond market-based mechanisms to finance nature-based solutions and foster sustainable futures. PLOS Clim 2(4): e0000169 doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000169. And Brears, R. C. (2022). Financing Nature-Based Solutions: Exploring Public, Private, and Blended Finance Models and Case Studies (1st ed.). Palgrave Macmillan Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93325-8. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4
  6. Görtler, M. (2015). Zeitforschung aus sozial-ökologischer Perspektive. Ökologisches Wirtschaften – Fachzeitschrift, 30(4), 17–18. https://doi.org/10.14512/OEW300417. ↩ ↩2
  7. Please note that this summary is not exhaustive neither in regard to available literature nor in regard to content of the individual publications. ↩
  8. Cool article on how long the idea of having a dashboard to grasp ongoings in a city is out there: Shannon Mattern, “Mission Control: A History of the Urban Dashboard,” Places Journal, March 2015. https://doi.org/10.22269/150309. ↩ ↩2
  9. Selection of readings: Jordi Nofre: “The Urban Ecological Transition and the Future of Europe’s Nightlife Industry” (2023),doi: 10.1080/16078055.2022.2162112; Kevin J. Gaston: “The Nocturnal Problem Revisited” (2019), doi: 10.1086/702250 and “Anthropogenic Changes to the Nighttime Environment” (2023), doi: 10.1093/biosci/biad017; Acuto, Michele, et al. Managing Cities at Night: A Practitioner Guide to the Urban Governance of the Night-Time Economy. 1st ed., Bristol University Press, 2022. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv22jnkcq. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4
  10. A city planner from Eindhoven told me this illustrative example during the research for my Master Thesis. Until today, to me this is one of the clearest explanations on how economic metrics sometimes fail for common goods like greenery. P.s.: Elionor Ostrom received the Nobel Prize for describing this already in 2009. See her [Lecture here]https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2009/ostrom/lecture/). ↩ ↩2
  11. Good read: “The hidden force that shapes everything around us: Parking.“” Marin Cogan in Vox, May 2023. ↩ ↩2
  12. See election poster Christian Democrats Stuttgart: “No to the Loss of Parking Spaces!”, Stuttgart, Germany 2024; On their Facebook Page ↩
  13. And I’m confident that Fraunhofer teaming up with vibelab can do the job :)! ↩
  14. Maybe it is so prominent because it is one of the clearest links when thinking about a natural night (dark) and nightly human activity (illuminated). Notably, research indicates that reducing urban lighting does not necessarily correlate with increased crime rates. Yet a fear of removing lighting persists, deeply ingrained in human and societal concerns about darkness. Since this is deeply engrained, it is certainly not easy convincing people otherwise, even the most rational beings. Interesting and controversially discussed read: Zhong CB, Bohns VK, Gino F. Good lamps are the best police: darkness increases dishonesty and self-interested behavior. Psychol Sci. 2010 Mar;21(3):311-4. doi: 10.1177/0956797609360754. ↩ ↩2
  15. Artificial light paved the way for lively urban neighborhoods after dark, see e.g. this book on how London’s nightlife evolved and how it is (for philisophists) to take a night stroll: Beaumont, M. (2016). Nightwalking: A Nocturnal History of London. Verso. Or how city-lighting changed everything from work to pleasure: Schlör, Joachim. Nights in the Big City: Paris, Berlin, London 1840-1930. Reaktion Books, 1998. ↩
  16. Good watch/reads: Sabine Hossenfelder Backreaction March 2022 – “Is light pollution a real problem?”. And “Illuminating the Effects of Light Pollution.”, The New York Times, Apr 2016 (paywall). ↩
  17. Studies show that significant contributions to light pollution often occur in peripheral areas, such as parking lots and suburban streets, rather than dense urban centrers. While there are numerous successful pilot projects around the world that address light pollution with innovative engineering solutions, they rarely advance beyond the pilot stage due to high costs and complexity, limiting their broader adoption. See1 e.g. unexpected sources of light pollution like a massive greenhouse in Maine or oil fields in N-Dakota: “Mysterious Light Sources”, Altair Space (2 March 2020). See2, streetlights are not the primary contributors: Gill, Victoria. “Light pollution’s wasted energy seen from space.” BBC (Oct 2020). See3, the engineering solution. To me looking a bit like taken out of a horror movie: Bat-friendly lighting in Gladsaxe, Denmark. Afry enginnering. n.d. ↩
  18. Debates on Lighting and Safety: I recall a particularly telling debate between an ecologist experienced in lighting issues and a nighttime economy advocate. The discussion revolved around the need to reduce lighting to prevent biodiversity loss versus the need to avoid creating spaces that feel unsafe. Such discussions highlight the difficulty in finding ‘middle’ ground where ecological and human needs align, suggesting that more dialogue, work and dedication are necessary to bridge these viewpoints. When you think about the beginning of why streets were lit up: It was street lighting that enabled nocturnal life in the cities in the first place. ↩
  19. Florida, R. (2002). The Rise of the Creative Class. Basic Books. ↩ ↩2
  20. Taxi driver played by Isaach de Bankolé and blind woman played by Béatrice Dalle. ↩