It’s 2 am in Shibuya, Tokyo, 2015. I’m three storeys up in a nondescript skyscraper, playing table tennis blind drunk with my ex-girlfriend. I pause for a moment and punch in an order on the tablet embedded in the booth: fried chicken, fries, a G&T and a pint of Asahi. Within minutes, a waiter appears mid-rally and sets down the order like clockwork. Life is beautiful.
The following year, Robert Doyle – Melbourne’s lord mayor, who would soon be disgraced following sexual harassment allegations – embarked on a political campaign to transform Melbourne into a late-night entertainment hub. The vision was for Melbourne to mirror cities across Europe and Asia: a cosmopolitan city with after-dark galleries, shops and eateries, bolstered by 24-hour public transport on weekends.
Now, a decade on, the well has all but dried up. Kebab vans stand like the Twelve Apostles in a vast ocean. Melbourne after midnight is a desolate panorama of shift workers, transient rough sleepers and ice-fuelled reptiles. How did we backflip in the space of a decade?
