ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways in which – notwithstanding considerable growth and despite being understood as vibrant, lively and dynamic – almost every city remains reduced, limited and significantly less active at night than during the day. It also explores a wider range of urban night-time leisure activities. The night-time alcohol and leisure industry in the UK serves as a good case study as to how capitalist expansion in the night has altered urban life. Understanding the urban night that is produced by the night-time alcohol and leisure industry in the UK as an atmosphere prompts wider discussions of the urban public night and nightlife. The chapter shows how the night-time alcohol and leisure industry can be understood as emerging out of a particularly controlled and managed atmosphere. The contact zone concept also helps to explain why the expansion of capital into the night may be viewed as 'fragmentation'.
