Uses of Time

>> Barcelona City Council has appointed a night mayor or night commissioner, Carmen Zapata, and it has announced the upcoming creation of the night council, both figures to manage and harmonise nightlife in the city.
>> This pioneering figure in Spain is a model that already works in other cities such as New York, Paris, and London, to manage the different uses and activities of the city at night.

The Barcelona City Council has approved two decrees that will boost nighttime governance in the city. These decrees have allowed the creation of a new figure and the next creation, as a starting point, of the two bodies that will manage nightlife in the city: the Night Council and the Permanent Commission, chaired by the mayor or commissioner of night

The new mayor or night commissioner will be Carmen Zapata, manager of the Association of Concert Halls of Catalonia since 2006 and founding member and former president of the Women’s Association of the Music Industry. Zapata’s main responsibilities will be the coordination and mediation of the city’s nocturnal activities, especially in terms of nocturnal and cultural leisure, ensuring coexistence and respect for neighbourhood rest.

Thus, on the one hand, Barcelona will have the Night Council, designed as a public participation body that will encompass the various agents involved in the city’s nightlife. On the other hand, the recently appointed Night Mayor will preside over the Permanent Commission, an executive and advisory body. This will carry out and coordinate the transversal actions that are decided in an agile and effective way. The values ​​that will define this new model will be those of mediation, transversality, prevention, proactivity and action.

Although Barcelona will have its first Night Commissioner – also the first of its kind in Spain – this figure is not new at an international level. Cities such as Amsterdam, which was a pioneer, Manchester, New York, Cali, Prague, Paris, Zurich and London already have similar mechanisms. In the British capital, for example, they incorporated it in 2016 with the idea of ​​a city that works 24 hours a day. There they call him the “night czar” and he is not only dedicated to night entertainment but is a figure who coordinates all the work that is done during the night. Thus, London’s night mayor, for example, works together with nightlife, local authorities, the police and public transport.

From the point of view of time use, this figure could contribute to improving the organisation of the city’s time at night, under the concept of a city active 24 hours a day and which must take into account and harmonize the various uses and needs of the population also during the night.