First-Year Seminar: Planning the Night

As societies urbanize and globalize, daytime activities increasingly encroach on the night. These changes hold significant ramifications for public health, social norms, and urban ecology, among other things. Yet many overnight activities have long been essential to the functioning of daytime societies: truckers, cleaners, snow removers, and sidewalk-salters work overnight to ensure our cities are stocked, cleaned, and greased by day. At the same time, urban night-life incubates new fashion, music, and social scenes. This course introduces students to foundational urban planning concepts by studying efforts to make cities safer, more productive, and more appealing at night.