Unlocking the Value of-24-Hours Cities 2025

Cross-cutting challenges to thrive round the clock3 Despite the promise of 24-hour cities, four systemic challenges continue to limit progress in this emerging field. Addressing these barriers will be essential to translate vision into action: 1. Fragmented governance Most night-time offices remain peripheral to core city planning, with no shared standards or metrics. The lack of harmonized night-time policy often results in operational inefficiencies, unpredictable permitting or conflicting regulations that deter long-term investment. 2. Time-bound infrastructure Parks close at dusk, transit thins out and public lighting is inconsistent. Current urban infrastructure is still designed around a diurnal cycle. Upgrading design, safety and mobility systems for 24-hour use is key to ensuring inclusive access and functionality. 3. Collaboration gaps Cities, private actors and researchers often operate in silos. A 24-hour agenda depends on building trust-based partnerships that can co-develop shared platforms, open data, tools and metrics that can help scale solutions and translate them into policies and regulations. 4. Financing constraints Unlocking the value of 24-hour cities requires targeted funding. Multilateral development banks and other global institutions can play a catalytic role by offering low-cost financing and supporting capacity-building to help cities implement night-time strategies. CASE STUDY 5 How data insights are strengthening London business districts Policy-makers worldwide are now embracing the power of data-backed decision-making, from building a case for a particular investment or policy to prioritizing services based on a better understanding of demographics and needs. Mastercard partnered with the Greater London Authority to create a data hub called the London High Streets Data Service, which curates third-party data and makes it accessible, usable and understandable for organizations that might not have the resources to do this on their own. In addition to aggregated and anonymized spending data, the service pulls in footfall data, vacancy rates and even site- specific information, like opening and closing hours. London’s 24-hour city team leveraged the data on special events designed to enliven high streets at night. While many high streets go dormant after 6 p.m., the data shows that these events drew visitors and spurred spending at local businesses, and that one in every four pounds is spent at night. This data contributed to decisions to make permanent infrastructure changes to those areas, such as additional streetlights and outdoor power points to enable future events. Source: Mastercard and Greater London Authority (2024).27 10 Unlocking the Potential of 24-Hour Economies