Myths of the night dismantled by night research of Ciudad Laboratorio in Caracas

"Less lighting, less people"; "The more police, the more security." These are some of the myths of the night that the field study of Laboratory City could unravel after four months. The activists spent four months, three days a week on the street, to evaluate the nightlife of the Caracas Metropolitan Area.

“We decided to do this study to invite citizens to activate in the recovery of the night. Part of the testimonies we gathered from the observers is that it was an opportunity to break with some myths and re-find the spaces that had been left behind or that they did not know, ”said José Gregorio (“ Cheo ”) Carjaval, as part of the justification from work.

Cheo Carvajal is a journalist and has spent years studying urban public policies. He is now a member of the Ciudad Laboratorio organization. This October 4 was one of the presenters of the Caraqueña Night Observatory, which took place at the Chacao Cultural Center.

Ana Cecilia Pereira, educator and biciactivist also participated in this presentation. She explained what the methodology they used in the observation was. He said 26 people participated, who observed 31 public spaces in the five municipalities of the Metropolitan Area (Libertador, Sucre, El Hatillo, Baruta and Chacao). For 16 weeks, three days a week and between 6:00 pm and 8:30 pm.

In several photographs, as evidence of his study, Pereira showed how they found the city. One of them was from the Jacobo Borges Museum (Libertador municipality) at 7:00 pm on a Friday. The place was traveled only by people waiting for a bus to La Guaira and the sidewalks were used as a public toilet.

He regretted that the surroundings of the Teresa Carreño Theater (Libertador municipality), one of the most important in Latin America, were empty and in darkness at 7:00 pm on a Friday. He also contrasted the darkness with the presence of people, because in the Plaza Los Síuetas (Libertador municipality) they were able to observe groups of young people who “refuse to leave public spaces”, even though this place was without lighting.

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Dismantling myths

? “Popular sectors are scary”

Part of the qualitative results of this field study was the perception of security in the popular sectors.

“Part of the experience was to realize that in the popular sectors we felt much safer than in the Plaza Miranda, next to the Millenium shopping center (Sucre municipality), he said.

They found that in areas such as Catia (Libertador municipality) and Petare (Sucre municipality) the fluidity of people at the times observed was greater than in areas of the municipality Baruta, El Hatillo and Chacao. These sites are traditionally considered as middle class.

? "Darkness drives away"

"In fact, people like the dark," Cheo Carvajal launched during the presentation.

To explain this finding, he gave the example of Carabobo Park. A place that as observed was incomplete public lighting. However, they saw people singing, talking, drinking alcoholic beverages.

“Lighting design for a city is important. You don't necessarily have to fill it all with light, but you can't leave it in the dark at night, ”he said.

A fact that stands out is that only 20% of the public lighting worked in those 16 weeks; compared to 40% of the private. The observers realized that civil society, due to failures in the public electricity service, has decided to install its own lighting.

? “There is no friday party”

The study was conducted on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. By comparison, Wednesday was the day that more people were observed on the street during the night. The movement increased a little on Fridays and that on Saturdays was much smaller than on Wednesday.

“Saturday is a day of the week that families are about to leave. We are struck by the fact that it does not match Wednesday. This study also allowed us to see and understand that we don't have a powerful Friday. It is not understood how the week is over and we will enjoy the city. It's a pretty dead day, ”explained Carvajal.

? "The police give security"

One of the places with the greatest police presence observed by the activists was the surroundings of the Metrocenter shopping center (Libertador municipality). However, the occurrence of robberies did not go down.

The appreciation of those who participated in the study of the night of Caracas is that the police forces are deployed to avoid the presence of the citizen.

"Usually the police are going to tell people in space" you better not be here that it is not very safe. " It seems that their presence is not to do preventive work, generate spaces for people to move around the city, but quite the opposite. The goal seems to be to make the citizen look