Light, Night and Urban Sustainability Symposium

This symposium tackles the question of how the night-time of cities might be made environmentally sustainable, accessible, safe and culturally effervescent.  A key (but not exclusive) focus of the symposium is the role of lighting in the night-time experience of cities.

The night-time of cities has emerged in the last 15 years as a key concern of public policy across multiple sectors.  New instruments of municipal governance (like night mayors), studies of night-time economies, activism to achieve the safety of women in the urban night, the extension of cultural activities into late night (nuits blanches, etc.), night-time transportation initiatives (the Nochebus in Mexico City), and movements for the preservation of  music venues are all symptoms of the new attention which cities and city-dwellers are paying to their nights.

How might we sustain an experience of the night which is unmarred by endless conflicts over noise and illumination, safe for all genders and sexualities, accessible by public transportation and culturally diverse and effervescent?  With experts from a variety of fields, the symposium will take up these issues.

Full program→

The event is organized by Prof. Will Straw, Axis Co-Director at CRIEM, and supported by CIRM, McGill's Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture and McGill Sustainability Systems Initiative.