Public Space at Night
By 
One might quibble with some of the activities of Bradley Garrett but his broader point about the need to protect the use of public space at night, as opposed to militarizing the night through curfews, is quite valuable.
Those that read the PSPOs piece will appreciate the overlaps. Curfews, by closing access to space, prevent us from staking a political claim in the public realm after dark. The wilful violation of curfews, such as in Tahrir Square in 2011, when protesters ignored a curfew imposed by Hosni Mubarak, can be a powerful political statement.
As A Roger Ekirch writes in his 2005 book At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past, as early as 1068, William the Conqueror set a curfew (from the French couvre-feu or cover fire) at 8pm, which was widely adopted across medieval Europe. Though this was ostensibly imposed to prevent fires from catching while people slept, those who will have read William I – 1066 by Eleanor Farjeon in school will recall that it was more likely about preventing candlelit late-night public plotting. People found not in their homes after the curfew were subject to incarceration, with particular ire levelled at those found outdoors in public squares and on roads.
Current law describes a curfew as “a regulation that forbids people (or certain classes of them) from being outdoors between certain hours”. Curfews, like ABSOs and PSPOs, are often directed at particular groups to prohibit them from being in public places after a particular time. In the United States, where the first Curfew law was passed in Nebraska in 1880, youth are circumscribed with particular vigilance. As of 2009, at least 500 US cities had curfews prohibiting anyone under 18 from being on the streets at night. Around 100 cities also have daytime curfews to keep children off the streets during school hours, making the hours when youths actually have a right to be in public space extremely narrow.
During the second world war, all people of Japanese ancestry in the United States, regardless of resident status, were forced to stay home between the hours of 8pm and 6am. In 1942, a 32-year-old student named Gordon Hirabayashi walked the streets of Seattle after curfew until he was arrested. He then brought a constitutional challenge to the law. His challenge was rejected, but in 1986 a federal court in Seattle overturned Hirabayashi’s conviction as a form of public apology.
As urbanist Rowland Atkinson writes, “places at different times may change in their role for accommodating different social groups – for example, a city square may serve as a place for lunching office workers while providing a place for skateboarders or potential muggers as the day progresses.”
Assuming that space becomes unsafe at night, however, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the night is a place where we think only violence happens, then people go into the night expecting that and make it manifest. However, if night-time is when people of diverse backgrounds and motivations gather, the night becomes safer, a space monitored by the “eyes upon the street” in the words of Jane Jacobs. Jacobs wrote in The Death and Life of Great American Cities that in order for a street to be a safe place, “there must be eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street.”
He then goes on to discuss cities like Amsterdam that celebrate a night culture as opposed to cities from Baltimore to Sydney that are scared of the night and thus are limiting the citizenry’s freedoms. Given the drug violence that infects so much of the country this might seem like an odd comparison, but I’ve long found the night culture of Mexican cities refreshing. People are simply out at night. They are on the plaza, eating at food stalls, playing with other kids, drinking at bars, and generally enjoying themselves. The only place in Mexican cities where I am nervous at night is where there are no people. In the plazas and zocalos and parks of Mexican cities though, it’s a great time. I was instantly struck by the difference between Mexico and the United States on this point, where people out at night are automatically suspect and scary. That’s really sad. Militarizing public space at night is simply not a good idea for creating safe cities.