Allison Harnden: The USA’s First Nighttime Economy Manager

24Minutes Podcast
Season 1, Episode 12
Jul 9, 2022
Guest: Allison Harnden, Nighttime Economy Manager, City of Pittsburgh

“We had growing nightlife that, like most cities, really had no plan. It just happened,” Allison Harnden is quoted as saying in a 2017 article from “Governing.”

“So suddenly you have neighbors feeling the noise or other kinds of disruption because systems haven’t been put in place.”

The European “night mayor” boom began in Amsterdam in 2012. 

Soon after, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania became the first city in America to retain a “nighttime economy coordinator.”

Harnden is a trailblazer. Spend 24 minutes with Pittburgh’s “night mayor” when we talk with Allison Harnden about how Pittsburgh’s Office of Nighttime Economy came to be and how having a nighttime manager has helped her city.