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This paper aims to start a reflection on the double and ambiguous identity of the cities. On one side, the “public face” of labour towns, made by work, social organization and public relations. A face that is characterized by productive efficiency and the “politically correct”. On the other side, instead, the “dark face” of the cities represented by the various features of marginality and exclusion, of the borderline relations, sometimes close or beyond the borders of law. Night and day, that coexist and take turns, and marked the city life without a break. The reassuring pulse of the chaos of the working city, opposed to the night time of silence and solitude, of anxiety, revelation, and lust. Night and day that overlap, although they’re the result of the ambiguity of human being. A contradiction that unveils and conceals the soul and that produce ambiguous behaviours, not always accepted by the social rules. The authors try to direct a multitude of multidisciplinary suggestions into a historiographical path, obviously awake that – at the present state-of-art – we are just talking of a first temporary palimpsest.