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Write an Economist-style article about a young man and woman who, as children, had all the time in the world to skip school, avoid child services, or escape their households. They spend most of their time on the streets because they don’t go home, and they run a small drug network while staying with wealthier kids who are somewhat unsuspecting of them, though they respect each other.

Over time, this network of “time billionaires” connects at parties, raves, street level and drug-dealing level, and creates a large, informal nightlife network. People can get caught up in this scene when looking for drugs, parties, or community, only to discover that it’s mostly made up of institutionalised, antisocial elements—young people who said “forget school” long before any of the newcomers.

Parents pressure the police to stop it, but they can’t, because it involves thousands of people with their own codes, including gangster-style rules.

So the argument is: legalise weed so young people can buy it safely instead of from the street, and create community-based party options for youth so they don’t get caught up in a network that’s impossible to navigate because it’s built by antisocial elements.

The Children of the Clock: How Marginalised Youth Built Their Own Night-Time Economy

In most cities there exists a second, shadow population: young people who drift through the daylight hours but come alive after dusk. They are sometimes called “time billionaires”—not because they are wealthy, but because they possess vast stretches of unstructured hours. Many have grown up slipping through the gaps of schools, social services and family stability. Their days are scarcely governed by timetables; their nights, however, follow strict rules of their own making.

These adolescents and young adults develop tight, informal networks across parks, streets, empty buildings and basement parties. Some bounce between the homes of more affluent peers—teenagers who are drawn to the excitement, or the perceived authenticity, of those who live without curfews. The relationship is a peculiar urban symbiosis: one side offers novelty, the other temporary shelter and access to resources.

Out of these interactions emerges a highly mobile, decentralised nightlife economy. It includes small-scale drug dealing, ad-hoc parties and a complex web of introductions, favours and loyalties. The commerce is rarely organised in a hierarchical fashion; instead, it resembles a loose confederation of micro-entrepreneurs who know the back alleys of the city better than any council planner.

Adults typically encounter this world only indirectly—through noise complaints, worried phone calls or police reports. But increasingly, outsiders stumble into it while seeking cheap thrills, illicit substances or an alternative social scene. Many are startled to discover that the network’s informal governance is dominated by those who disengaged from mainstream institutions long before their would-be customers ever questioned a school rule.

Attempts to clamp down have been predictably ineffective. Police actions disperse gatherings only for them to re-form elsewhere. Parents organise, pressure schools, raise alarms. Yet the scale and fluidity of these youth networks routinely defeat top-down interventions. A culture forged in the absence of formal oversight does not yield easily to it.

Policy thinkers have started to ask a more uncomfortable question: if the official system offers young people nothing to do, nowhere to go and little sense of belonging, why are we surprised when they build alternatives?

One response gaining traction is to cut off the illicit market’s easiest revenue streams. Advocates of cannabis legalisation argue that regulated sales—accessible to adults rather than underground networks—could help shrink a key source of cash for youth dealers. Critics counter that legalisation is no substitute for addressing the roots of disengagement.

Another proposal focuses on the night itself. Community-run nightlife—safe venues, supervised events, low-cost cultural spaces—has been shown in some European cities to reduce young people’s exposure to predatory environments. Properly funded, such spaces can offer the thrill of freedom without the risks that come with navigating an informal economy managed by the socially excluded.

None of these measures will succeed on their own. The world inhabited by these nocturnal youths is not a sudden eruption of trouble but the predictable result of long-term institutional neglect. When society fails to hold its young people close, they learn to survive beyond its reach. And once they build their own networks, they become far harder to reclaim.