Tag: night mayor

• Lisbon creates 24-hour district

  

  About a year ago I wrote a post called, Lisbon is the new Berlin. The timing of the post happened to coincide with Monocle’s first ever Quality of Life Conference, which was held in the city.

  Since then, I’ve been keeping an eye out for all things Lisbon and the city has quickly jumped to the top of my list of places I want to visit. I am obsessed with understanding the triggers that catalyze change within a community and/or city.

  On a related note, Lisbon has recently put in place new regulations to control nightlife in the city. Bars in certain areas must now close at 2am on the weekdays and 3am on the weekends. Outdoor patios must close at midnight. If you have the right kind of soundproofing though, your bar can remain open until 4am. The impetus for these changes was to address nightlife noise complaints – a perennial problem in many cities.

  However, Lisbon has also created a 24-hour district along a supposedly underdeveloped area of the waterfront. This means that bars and clubs in this area will have the option of staying open 24/7. At the same time though, investments are being made (Portuguese article) to transform the area into something more than just a place for drinking and dancing.

  I am noticing a real trend in European cities around using nightlife as a strategic lever to attract talent and revitalize neighborhoods. Oftentimes the knee jerk reaction is to simply focus on the negative externalities associated with nightlife. But there are strategic benefits. Many cities today recognize that.

  Image: Mhx on Flickr

  2016.05.01

• Why Toronto needs a night mayor

  

  Recently I wrote about the first Night Mayor Summit being held in Amsterdam. As part of this, I spoke about Amsterdam’s first night mayor – Mirik Milan.

  Since then (but obviously not because of my post), the idea has seemingly taken off. Below are a couple of excerpts from a recent Guardian article.

  This pragmatic and classically Dutch notion is now being copied across Europe: Toulouse, Zurich, Paris as well as several other Dutch cities have night mayors too.

  This week the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, announced plans for a “Night-Time Commission”, a six-month assessment of how to protect and manage the city’s £66bn night-time economy which is likely to recommend the creation of a “night-time champion” role. 

  Berlin is considering it too, and in April, Amsterdam will host the first global Night Mayors’ Summit.

  Why is this happening? Simple:

  “Late-night people are typically young, educated, creative, entrepreneurial – people you want in your city, and who work in the creative industries and startups you also want. If places like Berlin have flourished, it’s not just because of low rents. It’s because they’re nightlife capitals.”

  So if you’re reading this, Mayor John Tory, now is probably your last chance to make Toronto a North American leader in this regard. 

  It’s great that we are trying to push the Toronto – Waterloo region as a global startup hub, but so is every other major city and region in the world. A focus on startups is so commonplace in today’s economic development strategies, that at this point it almost feels meaningless. What are we going to do to stand out in this competition for the world’s best talent?

  If everyone believes something to be true – such as, there’s value in having a robust startup ecosystem – then it’s no longer innovative. It’s just the way things are. To take it to the next level, we’re going to have to do things that will probably feel uncomfortable at first – particularly for old establishment Toronto.

  I’m not saying that having a night mayor is going to be the silver bullet for our startup ecosystem. There’s no such thing. But I am saying that it should be one component of our larger strategy. 

  Because already there’s a growing number of European cities who have come to this one simple realization: people are drawn to kickass places.

  If you agree with this post, I would encourage you to leave a comment below and also tweet the Mayor of Toronto.

  Image: Berlin nightlife by Tom Stromer

  2016.03.26

• 10 city building predictions for 2016

  

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  Few things are better than waking up in the mountains and seeing a notification on your phone that 9″ of fresh snow have fallen overnight, bringing the 48 hour snowfall total to 16″.

  This is what people in mountain towns live for. They ski in the morning and then head to work in the afternoon. I heard a number of people on the mountain today saying that they, “want to be in the office after lunch.” It’s a lifestyle thing.

  On that note, today I’d like to focus on 10 city building predictions for 2016. I’ve been assembling this list over the past few weeks and now that I have had my fill of Utah powder for the day, I’m dedicating the rest of the afternoon to writing.

  These are never easy to put together. But here are my thoughts:

  1. We will see increased migration to secondary cities – outside of the alpha global cities – which offer a higher quality of life, more affordable housing, and the ability to live a particular lifestyle. This includes cities like Austin (creative startup hub) and Denver (outdoor recreation).
  2. As more and more cities wake up to the importance of lifestyle in attracting top talent, I think we will see a lot of cities follow the lead of Amsterdam and create “night mayors” or some other equivalent. These cities will begin to see nightlife as a competitive urban advantage.
  3. Global cities will start experimenting with different land use and property tax reform strategies to try and deal with rising income inequality and eroding housing affordability.
  4. We will see a barbell of residential unit sizes. We’ll see more well-designed small units as a way to try and promote housing affordability and we’ll see larger urban infill units for families and baby boomers who want to live/remain in walkable urban communities.
  5. In line with above, I think we will see a further rethinking of urban spaces. Flexible spaces, unique program mixes, and a continued blurring of public/private spaces. One example of this is the trend towards small private spaces surrounded by generous public/communal spaces.
  6. The Toronto and Vancouver real estate markets will continue to chug along because of low interest rates, a weak Canadian dollar, and increased foreign investment. That said, I think we will see more restraint when it comes to over-the-top luxury product.
  7. We will finally see a disruptive technology product that starts to get people in the real estate industry thinking that change is on the way. This will not be a product that ports an offline experience online; it will a new way of thinking about the industry.
  8. This will be the year that cities stop fighting Uber (and other similar marketplaces). Cities (and lobbyists) will finally accept that this is a new reality and then work to figure out the best way to create policy around it. Edmonton, Alberta has already become the first Canadian city to regulate Uber.
  9. Road pricing will get the attention it deserves in North America. Things will start out slow, but we will finally get ourselves on a path which recognizes that we can’t build our way out of traffic congestion in most major cities.
  10. I will publish a book on becoming a real estate developer.

  Many city building trends and shifts seem to happen in a global way. But I think it’s worth noting that a lot of these predictions were likely written with my North American lens on, and in some cases my Toronto lens on.

  It’s not easy sitting down and thinking about what will happen in the future. But it’s a worthwhile exercise. It forces you to take a stance and then, when the future does come, you can see how well you did. I saw Fred Wilson do this on his blog and I thought it was a great idea.

  Now I would love to hear what you think about my predictions and what yours are for this year. Please let us know in the comment section below.

  2016.02.01

• Amsterdam is about to host the first Night Mayor Summit

  

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  What is a night mayor, you might ask?

  Well, just as the name suggests, a night mayor is the chief executive officer of a city’s nighttime activity. And in 2014, Amsterdam became the first city ever to have one.

  Why is this important, you might ask?

  Well, for most cities the night is a blindspot. It’s viewed as something that needs to be carefully controlled as opposed to something that is celebrated and leveraged. Amsterdam saw this opportunity and, in my opinion, is now at the forefront of rethinking the night.

  Here’s an example of the kind of changes that this has meant for the city (via CityLab):

  “Until recently, Amsterdam enforced what by continental European standards is a fairly strict curfew: nightclubs had to close by 4 a.m. on weekdays and 5 a.m. on weekends. The city often had problems with noise and disorder at the exact moment when all the clubs closed, filling narrow inner city streets with rowdy people.

  To solve this problem, the night mayor suggested not less, but more time for people to go clubbing. He has helped push through the granting of 10 24-hour licenses for nightclubs. Crucially, all of them were located not in the dense city center but in thinly populated districts around Amsterdam’s outer ring road. The result was a marked reduction in street noise.”

  Some of you are probably feeling skeptical as you read this. Especially since 4AM and 5AM hardly seem strict when compared to other cities (Toronto’s last call is at 2AM). 

  But I would not underestimate the importance of what Amsterdam is doing. We are living in an era of the 24-hour global city and it’s about time that governments woke up to that. I’m sorry Toronto, but 2AM is an absolute joke.

  The night can be your competitive advantage in attracting human capital. As the CityLab article cited above suggests, a big part of what transformed Berlin into a capital of cool was its nightlife. 

  I wholeheartedly believe that and I have no doubt that the night will start to become a greater focus in city building.

  If you’d like to learn more about the Night Mayor Summit, click here.

  2016.01.30