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Comment by CydeWeys | Hacker News Reader

Seriously. And when space is at such a premium, and it's possible to build up as much as demand warrants, why exactly should nightclubs be prioritized over, say, people's housing? Perhaps the fact that they're diminishing in number reflects the simple fact that housing is a better (and more economic) use of limited space?

It sounds like they're not allowing enough construction to meet demand, and then being shocked when the obvious outcome (prioritization of some uses) occurs.

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The existence of things like nightclubs is a reason there is demand for the housing. A city with only housing is not one that anyone would want to live in.

False dichotomy. You can close all the city's nightclubs and you wouldn't have a city with only housing.

Only a very small subset of people living in the city will use nightclubs. It is reasonable that they are not given priority over things essential to living (housing, accomodations, transport, public services, etc..).

Nightclubs are one thing. I said "a" reason, not "the" reason. People don't go to the expense and trouble of living in cities because they have the bare essentials of keeping yourself alive. That is available in any town.

People move to the city because of things to do which includes nightclubs, restaurants, museums, theater, sports venues, cultural events, etc.

If all you want is a bunch of houses and roads connecting them and basic public services, you can get that for a fraction of the price in the suburbs.

Okay

> People move to the city because of things to do which includes nightclubs, restaurants, museums, theater, sports venues, cultural events, etc.

Now remove nightclubs from this list, and you still get a list of attractive reasons to settle in a city.

You don't have to infringe on the night of others to still have an enjoyable city. To repeat myself: you could close all the nightclubs in a city and you would still have plenty to live for there.

that's a good point. But also people move because of jobs, higher salaries and adequate living conditions (including housing cost). The last one can't be said about Dublin. Lots of friends of mine moved back to their countries even though wages were lower, but considering prices for food, entertainment and rent at the end of the month they have more money in the pocket.

Agreed. Lets get some stats of the distribution of jobs and average commute times and see how that comes out then vs now.

Edit: Also worth noting is the daylife, shall we say. That is, cafes and the like are a lot more popular than they used to be.

Anyone? Keeping a vibrant nightlife is great but there are many city residents who don't care about that and wouldn't even notice if it disappeared.

Nightclubs also mean drunk people, which correlates with broken glass being spread around and aggressive behaviors. I’m quite happy to live in a neighborhood in Berlin that doesn’t have the active nightlife the city is famous for!

My retired uncle lives in Kreuzberg with his family since he was a teen. They quite like it and just never moved out.

It has a lot to do with what you can expect from your neighborhood. A nightclub opening up right next door in a silent neighborhood is a recipe for a disaster, but it is similar with people moving into regions with a famous nightlife expecting a normal place to live. I for example dont have much sympathy for people moving in next to Frankfurt central station and then start to complain about the drunks, punks, junkies and hookers. Its like moving in next to train tracks and complaining about the sound of the trains.

Mind if I ask which area? Planning a move soon!

Alt-Treptow, more precisely on the west of Treptower Park.

People in the neighborhood are mostly families.

The Irish are pretty nice when they are drunk. Not all ofc, but with the amount of alcohol been drunk here in Dublin, the amount of drunk fights and things like that is quite low. At least in city centre. Lived in the Docks for 3 years and every weekend was out in town.

That's really a good point. The whole reason city living became popular again is that the supposed "utopia" of suburbia was really boring.

At what point was city life not popular?

In the US (and a lesser degree in other countries), the advent of the car in the 20th century (and especially after WWII) meant that the "good life" became defined as moving out of the cities (where housing was generally in apartment blocks or row houses) to the new suburbs where detached houses with their own yards were the norm. Cities were viewed as places where one might work, but if you were middle class or above, you returned to your suburban home at night. But over the last couple of decades people (particularly people born in the 1970s or later) began to see the advantage of living somewhere where you didn't need to drive everywhere and shopping, restaurants, and bars were just a short walk away.

In the UK, anytime before the late 90s. I can't find the statistic, but I remember reading that in the 80s, less than 1000 people lived in the city centre. Contrast that with the numbers now: https://www.centreforcities.org/blog/the-return-of-city-cent...

1977 comes to mind: https://youtu.be/bnVH-BE9CUo

I suppose this is true. But as a grumpy old bugger I much prefer a city without nightclubs. They're so bloody noisy they infect everything around them. And the appeal of damaging your hearing in an environment where it's literally impossible to communicate is a complete mystery to me. When I think about it I felt pretty much the same way even when I was young.

It's not housing though. It's hotels - quite different. Rents have been climbing up for the past years (it's now worse than London or Munich) and they don't seem to slow down. Tech boom (low taxation on tech firms), Brexit and AirBnB are the main drivers. People are coming in (quite often with fat paychecks) but few new apartments/houses are being build. New hotels will compete w/ AirBnB but will do little to alleviate the housing crisis(1).

1. It has been publicly recognized as such for quite long now. Crisis meaning that lower income families are unable to compete in this market (i.e. evictions and such). Also this is a hindrance to further economic development (who's going to work on all these new jobs when s/he'll have trouble making ends meet?). You get the idea.

Why can't a nightclub be included as part of "first floor" commercial/retail space that can be found in many cities? You have the best of both worlds, a mid/high rise with housing and close proximity to retail and entertainment spaces. Sure, clubs have noise and people issues, but these can be designed around for noise abatement and traffic control or put them underground. Bars have these issues too.

Just because land owners can make more from developing housing in the modern urbanization doesn't mean commercial retail/art/dining/entertainment spaces should be pushed out, otherwise the declining proximity benefits of urbanization lose their appeal.

Nightclubs are pretty loud though, and that bass travels a long way and is hard to isolate.

Maybe if the club was in the basement it might work, but I'd love to get some insight from someone who deals with acoustics!

If it were a high rise, I don't think it would be a problem. You could do a nightclub on the ground floor, 10 floors of office (which would would be empty when the nightclub is open) and 10 floors of apartments above that.

Have you ever lived near a night club? I used to live in an apartment with a nightclub down the street on the next block. I couldn't hear noise from the club itself but I could always tell when it closed by the loud people on the street. I was 20 floors up.

People can decide they're willing to live with the noise for the convenient location but there will always be some amount of noticeable noise if you live on the same block as a night club.

Oh crap, i had forgotten about that. I lived on a corner of two streets filled with clubs, several floors up. 23:00 onwards it was like someone was shouting constantly and directly outside each of my windows. Granted after a few weeks this became "normal" and every place I've lived in since as seemed strangely quiet.

True, that does seem like it would work.

My ex-flatmate left our flat to live above one. He didn't stay long in that new place. So yeah, good luck with blocking out low frequencies.

Any nightclub in a new residential build is going to be a terrible place full of shiny teenagers.

The sorts of venues mentioned in this article remind me of the old warehouse parties I used to go to here in Melbourne ~10 years ago, when I was well in to my 30s. They just wouldn’t have worked in a new place.

Sure, but eventually places age and develop their own character and audience.

In the same vein and more my crowd, you can't just open a (good) dive bar, it takes years to develop the community atmosphere they wind up becoming.

Who in their right mind wants to invest in a new build with the knowledge a late license was issued to the floor below?

This can exist, for example the Islington Academy in North London.

The exit is into the shopping centre, so noise and chatter from people leaving isn't a big problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O2_Academy_Islington

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