In a surprising number of communities light has become a public issue, and alternatives to standard highway-type lighting and glarey, overbright "cobra-head" fixtures chosen. Cape May still has gaslight, Bronxville, near New York City, has saved energy and kept high-quality light by retaining incandescent street lighting at low light levels. So have Kennebunkport, Maine, and Sandwich, N.H. As a result of interest shown by citizens, businesses, and politicians, special projects to improve the quality and character of city light and fixtures have been undertaken in New York City and even Detroit. And here, there, and everywhere, there are examples of private inspiration, jewels of good lighting that appear from nowhere in the foreboding sea of bright orange light.

These are communities whose citizens became aware of light and spoke up about it. They do not necessarily pay more for the better light they get. I think we all deserve to be seen in a better light, and that the real barriers are not financial or technical. Another scholar on this subject has commented that at various times in history "society saw it as a special stamp of urbanity to have their streets lit as elegantly as possible." For our society, "it's time," as another reporter has put it in a reference to sodium light, "to emerge from our shadowy yellow smog."

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