The Flaneur - Walking in the City
Thinking Allowed
00:00
The Importance of Night in the Modern City
In the dead of night, London is an alien city, especially if you're strolling through its lanes and thoroughfares alone. There are alleys and street corners and shop entrances where the darkness appears to collect in a solid, faintly palpitating mass. Only those who'd have that extreme experience could tell you properly how thick, almost impenetrable darkness could feel. But as I now recognise from reading a very fine new book, that doesn't mean that night time in the modern city is simply the daytime under lights. And what they're trying to do is reinvent the city, make up the meanings of the city for themselves by indulging in or engaging in what they call
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