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Comment by maegul | Hacker News Reader

For me this is an argument in support of higher density living and against suburban sprawl. If the distance between the urban artificial environment and an undeveloped “natural” environment beyond the city can be minimised, then there’ll be more opportunities for people to experience things like the above.

Maybe suburbs provide enough clarity of the night sky for most, I’m not sure. Still, the suburbs will never be the natural environment that undeveloped forests or parks could be.

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I don’t remember the name but I read a book years ago that was set in a future where humans live in dense cities with everything in between returned to wilderness. I always thought it was a really compelling idea if it were possible.

I've recently spent some time moving around the rural areas around my city and been really bothered by just how flat agriculture has made so much of the land. Sure there are preserved parks and even areas with some form of forest mingled with residential properties.

But the sheer amount of "flattening" and deforestation I "saw" (as it is easy to not notice it if you consider agricultural land normal) built up to a really unpalatable and disturbing feeling.

It was the first time I felt like I had some rational belief that the human population really should be reduced. Without some wonderful energy source that can provide a worthwhile substitute for sunlight, food production is necessarily limited to the top 0.2-1.5m of land (right?). From aesthetic to environmental factors, it really seems like an awful thing to reduce so much of the fertile lands to just that.

This is actually something that’s nice about Japan. The geography somewhat forces this sort of land use with urban areas and agriculture limited to the flat regions between the mountains. It’s clearly not an intentional choice since Japanese development policies will trample over anything feasible, but the mountains effectively protect themselves for the most part.

I put your comment into chatGPT verbatim and it came back with The Wild Shore by Kim Stanley Robinson. Any chance that’s the one? I’d be interested in reading it.

I checked the summary and that’s definitely not it. It might have been a short story or essay? I read it in what was supposed to be something like an engineering ethics class I think, but the teacher was more interested in exploring green philosophies. I remember reading a lot of really interesting stories and essays and the ideas from this one stuck with me, but I’ve never been able to find the writing again. My memory is too hazy and I only retained the general idea.

Late to the party, and I dunno if you'll see this, but could it have been E.O. Wilson's Half-Earth? He makes the argument in that book for keeping at least 50% of the land (connected) wild for animal use.

“A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for an Urban America“ by Vishaan Chakrabarti

If you want a low-light suburb, check out Irvine, CA on the eastside. Sometimes it's so dark at night, it's scary.

It’s curious the talk of low light suburbs. Not sure how I feel about them. My instinct is that they’re an anti pattern because of the safety concerns and I’m sure many would have the same thought, but I’m sure there’s more nuance to them than that and the sources of actual safety or danger one has in a suburb.

Motion sensors tend to provide safety as well as reducing wasted lighting. Seems like a win-win, yet they're rarely used.

I don't think this works well in terms of safety. If it's a low light area, it's beacon to your location. Only thing that would be worse is lights turning on headed in my direction!

Even if it was a simple car headed down the street, I'd be nothing but paranoid. Great stuff for horror movies though.

It's a beacon to others' location as well. When a light at my house turns on, I know someone is there.

we should not live in total darkness neither.

when the lights are on, EVERYONE'S exposed. No hiding.

You'd still have to drive quite a way out of the cities in most places, suburbs or not. The sky glow is noticeable for miles in places with any humidity.

Dense cities tends to be much brighter than suburbs. I’ve lived on a street with bright LED streetlights and even with blinds down bedrooms was uncomfortably bright at night affecting quality of sleep. Now I live in a place resembling American suburbs and enjoy relatively darkness at night.

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