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[–] Scapevvoat 0 points 5 points (+5|-0) ago 

If you want to know why light pollution is such an issue nowadays, the answer is the need to accommodate cars/automobiles/traffic. Safe driving requires good visibility, and when cars go beyond rural roads begin to mix into high density areas, such as cities - where they will mix with pedestrians and other things, there is the need to keep the streets brightly lit at all times. And of course, as urban areas built around cars (destinations built around convenient driving distance) are scaled much larger than ones built around people/pedestrians (destinations built around convenient walking distance), the cheapest and brightest method of lighting the street will be chosen to cover the much larger area affordably (which is currently the harsh light of High-intensity discharge lamps). Venice, which due to its unique situation has remained a car free/pedestrian only city has no need to keep its streets so brightly light, and indeed uses tinted glass to dim its streetlights and imitate the more pleasant orange-red glow of gas&oil lamps and candle light of bygone eras.