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Comment by dkarl | Hacker News Reader

Within the last five years, my street got much brighter, from one relatively dim streetlight in the middle of the block to multiple much brighter poles. I don't think we had a safety issue before, but many people prefer it this way, saying they feel safer. (Safer than what?)

I think we have to accept that we poison everywhere we live, and strive to concentrate ourselves in a small enough area that the planet can tolerate us. Of course, there's a chance we're poising ourselves as well, and the lack of outside darkness has some effect on us, but certainly on my block that's a minority concern.

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The "feels safer" is an interesting argument. From what studies I could find the more light has the opposite impact on safety. IE: The more light at night the less safe you actually are/more crimes occur.

The owner of my building has installed flood lights that are on all night and effectively remove any darkness from the outside. The main reason given was for safety, despite there never being a safety issue, and trying to convince them that the opposite is true has been difficult, to say the least.

this is typical of a lot of urban property in the USA. Yet as a child I remember many kinds of bugs, crawling and flying. Now there are literally none when I look for them, on several occasions. Bird population is low, too.

Crickets. I miss the sound of crickets.

It could be that they experienced a lawsuit where not having sufficient lighting or having unlit areas where people can be expected to walk resulted in an injury, and they or the insurance company had to cough up some money.

When those kinds of lawsuits happen, everyone goes into cover your ass mode.

It's not law suit related because it's a really small building and we would know if another tenant had an issue of that scale. It could be insurance related, but I doubt it. The unfortunate reality is he's just an awful person. There are very easy and cheap ways to make it so the lights don't shine directly into people's windows he just doesn't care (we've asked).

Could you link them? That's an interesting conclusion. Is there any correlation drawn, or even speculation as to the cause for this? Perhaps criminals need some light as flashlights draw too much attention?

Not without bias, but this article makes a good argument and provides plenty of links to other sources:

https://www.darksky.org/light-pollution/lighting-crime-and-s...

Genuinely curious to see the source of this statement. I was always under the impression that more light is safer.

Here are some studies: https://www.darksky.org/light-pollution/lighting-crime-and-s...

This list comes from an organization with an agenda of course, and there have been other studies that reached different conclusions.

Motion sensing lights outside my house certainly did nothing to improve safety for me, for the barest extra convenience of not having to remember to turn the porch light on before leaving when expecting to come back after dark.

They were likely detrimental, especially when considering the extra paranoia when I'm sitting there stoned trying to watch a movie and the light keeps ticking on outside. I got fed up with it and unscrewed the bulbs enough to not turn on, and so far my landlord hasn't complained about me doing so.

Criminals like to be able to see what they are doing as much as anyone else.

We experimented with cutting streetlight power at night where I live.

After six months of higher crime rates, we switched them back on.

So I suspect its a variable thing, based on location and existence of other lighting.

> "I think we have to accept that we poison everywhere we live, and strive to concentrate ourselves in a small enough area that the planet can tolerate us."

That may be true in a broader sense, but I think when it comes to outdoor lighting, it's a matter of changing the current prevailing policies that a lot of people don't like even if they're acting purely from selfish motives. I think the problem is that whenever you get a disagreement between someone who wants it dark so they can sleep and see the stars and someone who wants more light because they're afraid of crime or getting run over by a car at night, the latter almost always win.

There's some logic to that -- if someone's house gets robbed or you have a car accident the consequences are immediate and verifiable. If it happens a lot there'll be clear statistical trends. Whereas if someone can't sleep as well it's kind of a vague complaint that can be ignored, because the impact is spread out over the whole population and you can't really measure it. Everyone's lives are just a little bit worse and most people wouldn't even realize it or be able to recognize or articulate why. If you're a risk-averse mayor or president of the local HOA, of course you'd approve more lights, unless there's an organized effort to prioritize reducing light pollution.

They definitely switched from sodium-vapor lights to LEDs in my neighborhood and it's almost painfully bright (particularly when the streets are wet).

I miss the sodium lamps.

They were being transitioned out during my university years. First year all the lights on campus were that cool, single frequency yellow, by senior year there was just one, stuck in a lonely corner of campus, buzzing it's familiar call. I think the single emission spectra was a big part of the appeal. The complete lack of color left things somewhat eerie, but in a distinctly nonthreatening way. Just an alien peace.

Those were the next best thing to darkness: a color tone that we mentally associated with nighttime. I don't know whether or not they neurologically messed with our circadian rhythm, but at least psychologically it was a cue that it was late and "dark outside."

I agree, and I think society is beginning to wake up to this as suburbanism falls out of fashion. We structurally cannot all live in idyllic rural settings and conveniently be near urban centers.

We also have to acknowledge that human population is highest it's ever been and there needs thus increasing reasons and motivations to damage and poison this planet and harm the lives of every other specie just trying to survive.

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