Principles of Neighbor-Friendly Lighting

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Written by Tom Burrows  

Neighbor-friendly lighting is a lifestyle enhancement for everyone and is a matter of safety, common courtesy and avoidance of pointless waste. The opposite of neighbor-friendly lighting is nuisance lighting, which can be a source of friction between neighbors, a safety problem, an eyesore (both literally and figuratively) and even create new security problems instead of solving them.

As more people move into your community, there will be more residences, more businesses and more thoroughfares—i.e., more things that will be illuminated. Doing this in a consciously neighbor-friendly way, as opposed to the default practice of just installing what turns out to be nuisance lighting, will mitigate one form of urban blight as the community inevitably grows. And in neighborhoods out in the country, neighbor-friendly lighting helps preserve the rural character of the community.