A modest claim: after ten, a city owes its sleepers more than it owes its nightlife.
I like restaurants. I like music. I also like a room that does not vibrate because a delivery scooter is treating the sidewalk as a slalom.
If you live above a street that never ends, you already know the argument. If you live where the night is a product, you will disagree. Make the case with a specific block, not a vibe.
Yes, with a carve-out for the bakeries that start at four. Quiet is not the same as empty. I want the street to sound like people going home, not like a venue.
The baker carve-out is the whole debate in miniature: noise with a reason versus noise as a byproduct. I would vote for a lid and a list of honest exceptions.
I live over a bar that treats midnight as a suggestion. I am not asking for silence. I am asking for a lid. A city that cannot sleep becomes a machine for leaving.
No, or at least not as a rule from above. The same block is a market at six, a school run at eight, a terrace at nine, and a street at eleven. Zoning by clock is how you get a downtown that dies at dusk.
A downtown that dies at dusk is a real failure mode. I still think the sleeper is the more fragile party. You can take the music around the corner. You cannot take your bed around the corner.