Feature 
 

Urban Life

Consuming the Night

Night life comprises activities to earn livelihoods, socialization and entertainment.

By Anum Mufti | October 2022

Planners, decision-makers, legislators, academics and other stakeholders will soon realize that understanding the spatial distribution of the nocturnal activities of Karachi, is necessary for its optimal land use planning. The idea is not new but understudied for urban centers of Pakistan. Since the late 1980s UK has had a discourse focused on the nighttime economy. It is said that when the suburbanization wave peaked in the late 1980s and the inner cities were left dead after work, English town planners understood that they needed to function as spatial and ideal centers of urban society. Also, the importance of the nightlife in London in relation to tourism has long been understood, says Jakob F. Schmid, an urban scientist. There have been similar discussions in cities such as Paris and Amsterdam. Night life is defined as activities to earn livelihood, socialization and entertainment (for nocturnal leisure). Since it’s all about use of space hence it’s a major concern for town planning and planners.

The idea of consuming the night for different activities has grown and diversified with the rise of capitalism with accompanied social changes. With the increase in purchasing power of various social groups, the need to spend their excess money pushed the market to respond and create new avenues. These people want an experience of the clubbing culture which they either miss from the time when the city was more tolerant towards such activities or want to somehow replicate the nightlife they have experienced abroad. The nocturnal economy, for most part, is informal, undocumented and unmapped.



In a society where there are huge income gaps, poverty pushes people to opt for jobs which may be unacceptable from a moral viewpoint but the need to survive overshadows all types of morality and that is when poverty stricken women enter the dark realms of prostitution. Sex workers usually start their work in the late hours and take in customers till dawn. Many of these women originally move to the city looking for proper work, hoping for a better life and end up becoming sex workers.

Lifestyle shift in metropolitan cities has forced people to live in nuclear families and, in a fast growing city like Karachi, this means smaller housing, a move from houses to apartments and immense vertical growth of the city, which means leisure time moves out of the household.

Then there is a breed of clandestine party-goers with aspirations to catch up with the global culture of night-time entertainment. And some see this whole new experience as an opportunity to use these as network building spaces to be used for upward social mobility or, to say the least, be able to live a life they aspire for, regardless of thereality.

Another aspect of this killing pace of life in the metropolis is that people work abnormal hours. The business community, on which Karachi thrives, is operative at unconventional hours, from mid-afternoon till very late at night. This means the only time left to them to socialize tends to be the night and once again the market responds to their needs. This gives birth to the late nightChai Café culture and outdoor dining. The cafes usually occupy empty plots late at night and set up a make shift sitting area for the customers, serving chai and parathas till late at night. These spaces are mostly male-dominated other than a few exceptions when females and families can also be seen.

Since these spaces are socializing hubs in the wee hours, visitors tend to also avail service of malishwallas (male masseuse) and often vagabond folk singers can also be found entertaining people with their music in return for chai and cash. This is only the tip of the iceberg – or sand dune. There are innumerable other nocturnallives such as those at mazars and fishermen activities. For the better understanding of the city and for better planning proposals, these need to be documented and mapped. A closer look at planning documents depict the way our cities are mapped, designated and planned and planning for nighttime is strikingly absent. The people now do not follow the natural clock and the idea of 24 hour cities is common in a big metropolis like Karachi. There is a need to explore this change so as to better understand the lives of different stakeholders and what they contribute to the city. Two opposing needs of urban residents at night – those who want to sleep and those who want to go out - need to be reconciled in the planning process through mixed land use planning and recognizing the importance of cultural activities for a vibrant city like Karachi.

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