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You can get by sure, but more lighting can help reduce crime. We have a few streets nearby which have non-standard street lighting. It's less bright and the lig

You can get by sure, but more lighting can help reduce crime. We have a few streets nearby which have non-standard street lighting. It's less bright and the lights alternate on each side of the street. It's great for the people sleeping in the houses on that street but people feel much less safe walking down it at night and if I were to decide to steal a car or burgle a house, I'd pick that street. At least from what I hear politicians discuss when streets are having new/more modern lighting installed the discussion is always around crime and personal safety and never around cars.

Kye 5y ago
I haven't seen a credible study that shows more lighting reduces crime. I wouldn't be surprised if more lighting increased reported crime at night in the same way more policing increases the number of people who enter the justice system until criminals adapt. But most crime is done in broad daylight or beyond the reach of outside lights, so I doubt lighting has much to do with it.
bombcar 5y ago
I wonder how much lighting reduces crime vs just moving it around. If you have bright streets and dark ones, does the crime migrate to the dark ones? If all the streets are lit the same, does the crime spread out generally? Do people feel less safe or are they actually less safe? Suburbs are often lit like a Walmart parking lot yet I suspect the amount of crime is quite low.
kergonath 5y ago
> people feel much less safe walking down it at night and if I were to decide to steal a car or burgle a house, I'd pick that street A lot of it comes down to feelings. We need actual data, how much does crime actually goes up, not how people think it does. Otherwise, these people need to pay for the infrastructure and electric consumption. There is no reason why everyone should pay for their feelings if it does not bring concrete benefits to everybody.
Faaak 5y ago
Actually I've heard the contrary. There is less degradation (broken things, trashing glass bottles, etc), because people don't want to be in places they can't easily see themselves and move to more lit places.
goodpoint 5y ago
> more lighting can help reduce crime It works on a hyperlocal level, but on as whole city it's a zero-sum game.
DoreenMichele 5y ago
"Eyes on the street" is the key to safety. If you have enough people out and about on foot, you see less crime. This is not a function of any one thing.
EricE 5y ago
A good compromise is having a low level of steady light, but when there is motion increasing the brightness. It won't work for every situation - the constant up/down would be more annoying on a busy road, but we had a building with a large parking lot set back from a busy road that attracted lots of loitering in the parking lot. Swapping out the old parking lights to motion activated LED ones pretty much eliminated people congregating the parking lot at night leaving trash all over, tearing up the landscaping, or tearing up the lot doing donuts and other dumb stuff. So heck yeah, effective lighting can be a significant deterrence - and with things like motion sensors and LED fixtures with integrated dimming it doesn't even have to be obnoxious by default.

Kye 5y ago

I haven't seen a credible study that shows more lighting reduces crime. I wouldn't be surprised if more lighting increased reported crime at night in the same way more policing increases the number of people who enter the justice system until criminals adapt. But most crime is done in broad daylight or beyond the reach of outside lights, so I doubt lighting has much to do with it.

bombcar 5y ago

I wonder how much lighting reduces crime vs just moving it around. If you have bright streets and dark ones, does the crime migrate to the dark ones? If all the streets are lit the same, does the crime spread out generally? Do people feel less safe or are they actually less safe? Suburbs are often lit like a Walmart parking lot yet I suspect the amount of crime is quite low.

kergonath 5y ago

> people feel much less safe walking down it at night and if I were to decide to steal a car or burgle a house, I'd pick that street A lot of it comes down to feelings. We need actual data, how much does crime actually goes up, not how people think it does. Otherwise, these people need to pay for the infrastructure and electric consumption. There is no reason why everyone should pay for their feelings if it does not bring concrete benefits to everybody.

Faaak 5y ago

Actually I've heard the contrary. There is less degradation (broken things, trashing glass bottles, etc), because people don't want to be in places they can't easily see themselves and move to more lit places.

goodpoint 5y ago

> more lighting can help reduce crime It works on a hyperlocal level, but on as whole city it's a zero-sum game.

DoreenMichele 5y ago

"Eyes on the street" is the key to safety. If you have enough people out and about on foot, you see less crime. This is not a function of any one thing.

EricE 5y ago

A good compromise is having a low level of steady light, but when there is motion increasing the brightness. It won't work for every situation - the constant up/down would be more annoying on a busy road, but we had a building with a large parking lot set back from a busy road that attracted lots of loitering in the parking lot. Swapping out the old parking lights to motion activated LED ones pretty much eliminated people congregating the parking lot at night leaving trash all over, tearing up the landscaping, or tearing up the lot doing donuts and other dumb stuff. So heck yeah, effective lighting can be a significant deterrence - and with things like motion sensors and LED fixtures with integrated dimming it doesn't even have to be obnoxious by default.