Nighttime Control: Temporal Patterns of Collective Efficacy in Disadvantaged Neighborhoods

• In Event: Improving Public Safety Through Lighting, Street Cleaning, and Murals

Abstract

This study explores how collective efficacy shifts between day and night in disadvantaged urban neighborhoods, adding a temporal dimension to spatial inequality. Using ethnography, focus groups, and interviews in four high-crime Philadelphia neighborhoods, we show that informal social control and cohesion fluctuate within neighborhoods by time of day. We identify three key mechanisms: sunset-induced public space withdrawal, evening control transfer to criminogenic actors, and “temporal capital drain”—the outflow of human and economic resources. These patterns create distinct daytime and nighttime social environments within the same area. This temporal lens expands neighborhood effects research, revealing that informal social control follows daytime rhythms, suggesting opportunities for temporally-targeted interventions.

Authors

• Brian Wade, University of Pennsylvania

• John MacDonald, University of Pennsylvania