At the time of writing this introductory text to this special issue, Nocturnal Cities : Past, present, and Future, the night in many cities from the Global South, East, and North is glowing again after a three-year pandemic period characterised by the application of massive lockdowns, night curfews, social distancing, mandatory home confinements, and a strong punitive criminalization of the institutional-media-civic front against ‘the night’ and the youth (Nofre et al., 2023). After this brief but intense and dark period of pandemic politics (Dionne & Turkmen, 2020 ; Lynch et al., 2022 ; Ryan & Nanda, 2023 ; Sommer & Rappel‐Kroyzer, 2022), the urban night is once again as vibrant as it was in the years prior to the pandemic. Every weekend tens of thousands of people go out to dine, meet friends or dance ; thousands more work at night in back-office and logistics centres, supply centres, essential services and health institutions (Dušková & Duijzing, 2022 ; Lin et al., 2022 ; Shaw, 2022) ; many use nighttime public transport, ride-sharing companies, or take their own vehicle to get across the city (Halás & Klapka, 2023 ; Plyushteva, 2021). Meanwhile, a number of informal workers (domestic workers, street food vendors, street dealers and sex workers) carry out their activities at night, some of them taking advantage of the liminal anonymity of darkness (Koren, 2022 ; Seal, 2022).

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