Henni+Milli #5: Planning the City after Dark

This episode of the podcast dives into nightlife as a form of public space, weighing the risks — noise complaints, safety concerns, exclusionary access — against its social, cultural, and economic value, especially for marginalized groups such as women and the queer community. On the policy side, the discussion traces how a city moves from treating nightlife as something to contain toward funding and protecting it: cross-city exchange (drawing on Berlin's decades-old Club Commission model) combined with hard economic data proved decisive in shifting political will. From there, the conversation covers concrete mechanisms for safer nightlife: focus groups bringing together club workers, promoters, and partygoers; a citywide safety survey prompted by drink-spiking incidents; anti-discrimination training; and a pilot safety app in the Wiener Gürtel district that lets people summon help via a location system, now expanding into public-space events. A related pilot on the Danube Island shows the city funding grassroots collectives to run parties under a bridge with flexible curfews — an ongoing experiment in balancing creative freedom against neighbors' noise concerns and the financial precarity of largely non-profit party organizers.On the embodied and cultural side, the conversation frames dancing as a feminist, political act — a way of taking up visible space, releasing tension, and building empowerment, particularly through women- and queer-centered events that foreground underrepresented female-produced house and electronic music. These temporary, community-run dance spaces are discussed as needing both structure — physical boundaries, an awareness team, clear consent policies, no-photo rules — and enough openness to remain creative and inclusive, positioned deliberately as visible-but-bounded alternatives to closed, consumption-driven club spaces. A recurring theme ties the two threads together: institutional policy and grassroots nightlife practice depend on each other, with policy providing platforms, funding, and mediation with politicians, and practitioners supplying lived knowledge of what actually makes a space feel safe and welcoming. This episode closes by widening the definition of an "inclusive city after dark" beyond clubs and events to the full infrastructure of night life — night-shift workers, public transport, childcare, and other services that support people living and working through the night — and notes that generational and gender diversity within city administration has been a meaningful factor in getting these pilot projects approved.About our guests: Martina Brunner founded the Night Mayor Vienna initiative to raise awareness of the social, cultural, and economic relevance of nightlife and club culture. She is Executive Director of Vienna Club Commission which mediates between venues, city administration, and residents for safer nightlife. DJ Uschi's practice sits at the intersection of music, feminism, and public space. With her mobile disco sound system, she tours using dancing and DJing as a way to reclaim the city after dark and create space without consumerism that feels open, particularly for women and queer communities.  ⁠Henni+Milli ⁠is a temporary, consumer-free public "placemaking" project and community testing ground located along the Donaukanal in Vienna, specifically named after the Henriette-Fahrbach-Promenade and Emilie-Turecek-Promenade near the Franzensbrücke. This project was implemented in the framework of the FFG funded DUT InclusiveCity Project and implemented with the funding of the MA45/City of Vienna.This podcast was produced in a cooperation with ⁠Placemaking Austria ⁠and ⁠superwien⁠.Hosts: Vivian Monteiro Malta & Roland Krebs