Night Mayors Come to America

The idea of a Night Mayor may sound fun or whimsical, but this is a position built for handling the very real issues. In any city, the population will divide itself between people who want to go to sleep at night and people who want to go out and seek entertainment. The Night Mayor is focused on adjudicating conflicts between the two and making sure a city and its bureaucracy is responsive to the entertainment and hospitality businesses that make its city distinct and give it charm.

These issues are not unique to the Netherlands. "Pittsburgh got its first “nighttime economy coordinator” three years ago, around the time Milan started in Amsterdam. Orlando Florida, recently created a “’bar czar’ position," Natalie Delgadillo reports in Governing.