LEDs

Multi-Modal Hub

The Surprising Ways Cities Work to Clean the Environment

Municipal programs and urban design offer cities multiple, perhaps surprising ways, to clean the environment.

March 28, 2021 - Devin Partida

Nighttime Skyline

LEDs, Downward Lights Changing the Night in Chicago

The nighttime illumination of Chicago is almost finished with a complete overhaul of its streetlights, producing a dramatic effect in the nighttime environment of the city.

January 3, 2020 - Chicago Tribune

Beacon

How the Lights in Our Cities Became Too Bright

“Why are lighting designers and experts nearly unified in their belief that outdoor lighting in past years has been excessive?”

May 7, 2018 - Metropolis Magazine

LED Lights

LEDs Are Worth 160 Coal Plants

Some hate the way LEDs light up the public realm, but if you're trying to reduce carbon emissions, it's impossible to ignore the achievements of LED light bulbs.

January 9, 2018 - Quartz

LED Lights

If LEDs Are Bad for Our Health, What Should Cities Do Now?

A report from the American Medical Association says LED lights are bad for our health, inspiring some cities to re-evaluate the technology.

September 26, 2016 - The Washington Post

Los Angeles Streetlights

Los Angeles Changes Color

Adam Rogers chronicles Los Angeles' long and intimate relationship with the electric light. The city's recent choice to adopt LED streetlights has transformed a classic nighttime into something new.

November 24, 2015 - BOOM: A Journal of California

Ahead of Schedule: Detroit Wrapping Up Installation of 40,000 LED Streetlights

In perhaps the brightest sign yet of recovery, the Detroit Public Lighting Authority has made incredible progress on a project to install 40,000 LED streetlights around the city's residential neighborhoods.

June 16, 2015 - The Detroit News

How LEDs Re-Illuminate the Urban Night Sky

Forbes Magazine reflects on the importance and impacts of light-emitting diode (LED) lights as more cities replace their traditional streetlamps with LEDs.

September 19, 2014 - Forbes Magazine

The Dramatic Impact of LED Streetlights on Celluloid

Los Angeles recently completed a comprehensive installation of LED streetlights—and New York City is not far behind. Among the unintended consequences of the new technology? Cities will now look completely different on film.

February 4, 2014 - No Film School

Transforming a Train Station on the Cheap

For only $155,000 a light sculpture has helped transform Stamford, Conn.'s unloved train station - “a building that has a harshness almost unequaled in contemporary architecture” - into a pulsating beacon "reminiscent of a Mondrian" painting.

March 10, 2013 - The New York Times

City Hall Philadelphia

How Light Helped Remake Downtown Philadelphia

Neal Peirce looks at how Philadelphia has used light to help transform the image, and fortunes, of Center City.

January 18, 2013 - Citiwire

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Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools

This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.

Planning for Universal Design

Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.