Changing Our Toon: Youth, Nightlife and Urban Change in Newcastle

Even a casual observer could not fail to notice the ritual decent of young adults onto city centre streets in Britain every Friday and Saturday night. City councils and universities have increasingly made reference to the quality of night life aimed at young people to boost the image of the city and numerous commentators have also remarked upon the role night time activity are playing in the revival of Britain's city centres. Yet despite a long history of writing on youth, its relationship with city spaces, consumption and identity has remained relatively unexplored. This research project seeks to provide a theoretically informed social and spatial analysis of the production, regulation and consumption of nightlife spaces in three English cities (Newcastle, Leeds, Bristol). The research is based around conducting an in-depth participant observation study of three sub-groups of young people and interviews with key institutional actors in the night time economy such as police, local authorities, corporate players and licensing officials.