ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book offers fresh perspectives on the urban–world relationship that is at the heart of the planetary urbanization debate. It conceptualizes the night in social science, with a view to bringing out how it has been understood as an object of research. The book focuses on infrastructures, using lighting as its key example; and introduces the concept of the 'biogeoastronomical' night to describe the elements of night which emerge because of planetary living. It discusses the night-time economy and attempts to connect the best-researched case–the UK–to global night-time leisure in cities. The book then focuses on night as aesthetic to try to get at its use as a way of promoting ways of living in the city. It concludes with a reflection on the temporal limits to the city, and offers a few suggestions as to what a future 'nightology' might study.
