8 ms·

HOAs have their downsides, but I do really appreciate one of my CC&Rs: in my ~4 square mile city, we are not allowed to have exterior lights apart from ones to

HOAs have their downsides, but I do really appreciate one of my CC&Rs: in my ~4 square mile city, we are not allowed to have exterior lights apart from ones to illuminate driveways and patios. Moreover, there are no street lights in the entire city. It's an oasis of uncorrupted night in the unlikeliest of places: Los Angeles. You can see city lights from certain vantage points, but in most places it is pitch black. Living here feels like perpetual camping. It is wonderful, and it would be stressful for me to return to living in a place with perpetual illumination.

Zak 4y ago
I have a family member in Sedona, AZ. There are no street lights there except for a single state highway, and private always-on outdoor lighting is legally restricted to being low, dim, and shaded. It's pleasant, and I find driving at night there easier because headlights provide more contrast when not everything is illuminated.
- vkou 4y ago
  Whereas I find nothing pleasant about my night-time drives through the suburbs of Bellevue. I spend the entire drive paranoid that someone's going to cross the street, and that I won't even see them until they are right in front of me. Rain, darkness, tree cover, incredibly bright oncoming headlights, poor street lighting, and enough-of-a-walking-culture-that-people-might-be-walking-at-night is a great combination.
  - LeifCarrotson 4y ago
    So slow down until you can safely stop when an obstruction appears at the limits of your low beams. The speed limit is a maximum speed allowed for driving in clear weather in the daytime, not a minimum for driving in rain in the dark.
  - a1pulley 4y ago
    I came here to say the same as the sibling comment. Why not slow down? That is what happens in my city: residents drive slowly because they don't want to hit a neighbor.
    - vkou 4y ago
      When I slow down driving through trickier areas in Seattle in that situation, most other drivers understand why I'm doing that. I do that in the suburbs, and everyone loses their shit.
      - stephencanon 4y ago
        That’s a them problem, though, not yours to worry about.
- wcarron 4y ago
  I'm just up the road in Flagstaff and the dark skies are absolutely one of my favorite parts of living here. Darkness is an underrated addition to quality of life.
hammock 4y ago
What part of LA is this?
- a1pulley 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Hills,_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Hills,_California
  - rqtwteye 4y ago
    Very wealthy area
  - Animats 4y ago
    Somewhere in LA, a burglar is probably reading this.
    - a1pulley 4y ago
      If I were inclined to rob houses, I would find the challenge and risk of robbing houses here quite interesting. Apart from the fact that all roads in go through manned gates, this is the most republican city in SoCal. In translation: most of us have a lot of guns.
  - RangerScience 4y ago
    Very off-topic, but the Astra Lumina night walk at the gardens near you is actually really nice, if you haven’t been.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> there are no street lights in the entire city. Doesn't this cause issues? Sounds like it would turn 20 minute walk into a dangerous excercise. Do people walking on foot carry torches? This sounds really crazy from road safety perspective I don't mean crime, i mean getting lost and collisions.
- hnlmorg 4y ago
  Cars are usually equipped with headlights. ;) On a more serious note, it’s pretty common for UK roads to lack street lights. Particularly in more rural areas. The majority of my drive home from work is unlit.
  - justincormack 4y ago
    I live in a small village with no streetlights, and lovely views of the stars. It is very dark here at night, was a real shock coming from the town, I used to walk around where I was previously, that was not well lit but the amount of ambient light was actually quite high. Very different here.
- cld8483 4y ago
  > Do people walking on foot carry torches? At night, if there is insufficient moonlight? Yes of course. Street lights only exist in urban areas, if you're walking anywhere else in the world at night, a flashlight seems like a logical choice.
  - antisthenes 4y ago
    OP clearly stated they have an HOA. If you have an HOA - you live in an urban area. So I'm not sure what your comment alludes to. If I live in such a place, I expect to be able to walk on sidewalks without a flashlight.
    - a1pulley 4y ago
      > If I live in such a place, I expect to be able to walk on sidewalks without a flashlight. We don't have any sidewalks. People either take trails adjacent to roads or walk on the roads themselves. Everyone is aware that pedestrians and equestrians are first class citizens, so residents drive slowly. That's not true for some delivery drivers and domestic workers, but we find the risk-reward tradeoff reasonable enough to have left the lighting provision in our CC&Rs for the last eighty years. Sometimes, expectations are at odds with the realities of what is tolerable in terms of safety, good for local flora and fauna, and pleasurable for ourselves.
aeharding 4y ago
> there are no street lights in the entire city. Yikes. Street lighting is one of the most important safety improvements, especially for people walking, as most pedestrian deaths due to drivers occur at night. https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/provencountermeasures/lighting.cfm https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/provencountermeasures/lighting.c... Of course, if we weren't so dependent on cars to do literally everything this wouldn't be the case, and we could safely get rid of a lot of street lighting.
- eastbound 4y ago
  Similarly, the installation of public lightening by Colbert in the XVIIIth in Paris, lowered criminality by an order of magnitude. It also enabled women rights, since, with the ability to somewhat walk securely at night or in the early morning, comes the ability to go to the factory and work somewhere else than in the house.
  - aziaziazi 4y ago
    Some studies found no evidence for an association between crime and switch off or part-night lighting [0] [0]https://jech.bmj.com/content/69/11/1118.short?g=w_jech_ahead_tab https://jech.bmj.com/content/69/11/1118.short?g=w_jech_ahead...
    - eastbound 4y ago
      We’ll need more and more of those studies as we switch off those lights to save energy. If it was possible to VC-fund them, that’s where I would put most if my money.
- RobotToaster 4y ago
  I appreciate how important it was in the past, but in the era of inexpensive and powerful LED flashlights, streetlights do seem rather redundant and wasteful.
  - TSiege 4y ago
cryptonector 4y ago
Yellow street lighting is not as polluting as LED street lighting. Bring back yellow lighting!
- a1pulley 4y ago
  I'm fond of warm, yellow hues for indoor spaces. If I were forced to choose a color for outdoor lighting, I would go for the same. However, white vs. yellow has already played out in some areas: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-09-30-mn-40657-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-09-30-mn-40657-...
- adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
  This is only half true. bluer LED lights only need half as much light to get the same visibility.
  - cryptonector 4y ago
    The yellow lights were never brighter than the blue lights. And the hue matters.
nick__m 4y ago
why completly ban the exterior lights when restricting the type, direction and power of the lights is enought to qualify for a region to be designated as a IDSR by the International Dark sky Association. For pratical exterior lighting tips approuved by the IDA this page is a good resource : https://en.cieletoilemontmegantic.org/citoyens https://en.cieletoilemontmegantic.org/citoyens
cvccvroomvroom 4y ago
It's still LA, where driving is war between the insane, the jerk, and the insane jerk. And earthquakes, forest fires, fresh water insecurity, neglect of the unhoused, and people who wouldn't get the South Park episode about the pretense of a personal brand. (Don't forget absurd housing costs.)
opportune 4y ago
I think the LA area’s low street light density is partially because things are so spread out that it wouldn’t be worth it. You probably still have too much light to see things like the Milky Way. And I gotta say anecdotally, one of my top-10 most stressful driving experiences was trying to navigate Gardena at night, because they not only have few streetlights, but seem to use ineffective reflective strips as well.

Zak 4y ago

I have a family member in Sedona, AZ. There are no street lights there except for a single state highway, and private always-on outdoor lighting is legally restricted to being low, dim, and shaded. It's pleasant, and I find driving at night there easier because headlights provide more contrast when not everything is illuminated.

vkou 4y ago
Whereas I find nothing pleasant about my night-time drives through the suburbs of Bellevue. I spend the entire drive paranoid that someone's going to cross the street, and that I won't even see them until they are right in front of me. Rain, darkness, tree cover, incredibly bright oncoming headlights, poor street lighting, and enough-of-a-walking-culture-that-people-might-be-walking-at-night is a great combination.
- LeifCarrotson 4y ago
  So slow down until you can safely stop when an obstruction appears at the limits of your low beams. The speed limit is a maximum speed allowed for driving in clear weather in the daytime, not a minimum for driving in rain in the dark.
- a1pulley 4y ago
  I came here to say the same as the sibling comment. Why not slow down? That is what happens in my city: residents drive slowly because they don't want to hit a neighbor.
  - vkou 4y ago
    When I slow down driving through trickier areas in Seattle in that situation, most other drivers understand why I'm doing that. I do that in the suburbs, and everyone loses their shit.
    - stephencanon 4y ago
      That’s a them problem, though, not yours to worry about.
wcarron 4y ago
I'm just up the road in Flagstaff and the dark skies are absolutely one of my favorite parts of living here. Darkness is an underrated addition to quality of life.

hammock 4y ago

What part of LA is this?

a1pulley 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Hills,_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Hills,_California
- rqtwteye 4y ago
  Very wealthy area
- Animats 4y ago
  Somewhere in LA, a burglar is probably reading this.
  - a1pulley 4y ago
    If I were inclined to rob houses, I would find the challenge and risk of robbing houses here quite interesting. Apart from the fact that all roads in go through manned gates, this is the most republican city in SoCal. In translation: most of us have a lot of guns.
- RangerScience 4y ago
  Very off-topic, but the Astra Lumina night walk at the gardens near you is actually really nice, if you haven’t been.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

> there are no street lights in the entire city. Doesn't this cause issues? Sounds like it would turn 20 minute walk into a dangerous excercise. Do people walking on foot carry torches? This sounds really crazy from road safety perspective I don't mean crime, i mean getting lost and collisions.

hnlmorg 4y ago
Cars are usually equipped with headlights. ;) On a more serious note, it’s pretty common for UK roads to lack street lights. Particularly in more rural areas. The majority of my drive home from work is unlit.
- justincormack 4y ago
  I live in a small village with no streetlights, and lovely views of the stars. It is very dark here at night, was a real shock coming from the town, I used to walk around where I was previously, that was not well lit but the amount of ambient light was actually quite high. Very different here.
cld8483 4y ago
> Do people walking on foot carry torches? At night, if there is insufficient moonlight? Yes of course. Street lights only exist in urban areas, if you're walking anywhere else in the world at night, a flashlight seems like a logical choice.
- antisthenes 4y ago
  OP clearly stated they have an HOA. If you have an HOA - you live in an urban area. So I'm not sure what your comment alludes to. If I live in such a place, I expect to be able to walk on sidewalks without a flashlight.
  - a1pulley 4y ago
    > If I live in such a place, I expect to be able to walk on sidewalks without a flashlight. We don't have any sidewalks. People either take trails adjacent to roads or walk on the roads themselves. Everyone is aware that pedestrians and equestrians are first class citizens, so residents drive slowly. That's not true for some delivery drivers and domestic workers, but we find the risk-reward tradeoff reasonable enough to have left the lighting provision in our CC&Rs for the last eighty years. Sometimes, expectations are at odds with the realities of what is tolerable in terms of safety, good for local flora and fauna, and pleasurable for ourselves.

aeharding 4y ago

> there are no street lights in the entire city. Yikes. Street lighting is one of the most important safety improvements, especially for people walking, as most pedestrian deaths due to drivers occur at night. https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/provencountermeasures/lighting.cfm https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/provencountermeasures/lighting.c... Of course, if we weren't so dependent on cars to do literally everything this wouldn't be the case, and we could safely get rid of a lot of street lighting.

eastbound 4y ago
Similarly, the installation of public lightening by Colbert in the XVIIIth in Paris, lowered criminality by an order of magnitude. It also enabled women rights, since, with the ability to somewhat walk securely at night or in the early morning, comes the ability to go to the factory and work somewhere else than in the house.
- aziaziazi 4y ago
  Some studies found no evidence for an association between crime and switch off or part-night lighting [0] [0]https://jech.bmj.com/content/69/11/1118.short?g=w_jech_ahead_tab https://jech.bmj.com/content/69/11/1118.short?g=w_jech_ahead...
  - eastbound 4y ago
    We’ll need more and more of those studies as we switch off those lights to save energy. If it was possible to VC-fund them, that’s where I would put most if my money.
RobotToaster 4y ago
I appreciate how important it was in the past, but in the era of inexpensive and powerful LED flashlights, streetlights do seem rather redundant and wasteful.
- TSiege 4y ago

cryptonector 4y ago

Yellow street lighting is not as polluting as LED street lighting. Bring back yellow lighting!

a1pulley 4y ago
I'm fond of warm, yellow hues for indoor spaces. If I were forced to choose a color for outdoor lighting, I would go for the same. However, white vs. yellow has already played out in some areas: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-09-30-mn-40657-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-09-30-mn-40657-...
adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
This is only half true. bluer LED lights only need half as much light to get the same visibility.
- cryptonector 4y ago
  The yellow lights were never brighter than the blue lights. And the hue matters.

nick__m 4y ago

why completly ban the exterior lights when restricting the type, direction and power of the lights is enought to qualify for a region to be designated as a IDSR by the International Dark sky Association. For pratical exterior lighting tips approuved by the IDA this page is a good resource : https://en.cieletoilemontmegantic.org/citoyens https://en.cieletoilemontmegantic.org/citoyens

cvccvroomvroom 4y ago

It's still LA, where driving is war between the insane, the jerk, and the insane jerk. And earthquakes, forest fires, fresh water insecurity, neglect of the unhoused, and people who wouldn't get the South Park episode about the pretense of a personal brand. (Don't forget absurd housing costs.)

opportune 4y ago

I think the LA area’s low street light density is partially because things are so spread out that it wouldn’t be worth it. You probably still have too much light to see things like the Milky Way. And I gotta say anecdotally, one of my top-10 most stressful driving experiences was trying to navigate Gardena at night, because they not only have few streetlights, but seem to use ineffective reflective strips as well.