Reclaiming Civility in Urban Nightlife Districts

This chapter raises the issue of what the new forms of policing in nightlife districts mean for the public character of night-time urban spaces. The term Night-Time Economy (NTE), commonly used in the UK-based scholarly literature, is quite revealing with regard to the obvious link currently made between nightlife, profitability and inter-urban competitiveness. The most common governmental response to concerns relating to excesses in nightlife districts has been the intensification of surveillance and policing. CCTV images in nightlife districts are increasingly used to deter anti-social behaviour such as urination in public and the leaving of litter in the streets both much less serious offences than CCTV was originally aimed at. By reclaiming civility' and remoralising nightlife districts for a particular responsible' citizen, these new forms of governance reveal different ways of controlling public space than traditional ways of policing. A social sorting' of the population under surveillance takes place in nightlife districts.