From MOTHERBOARD:
“Citing recent research findings that “brighter residential nighttime lighting is associated with … impaired daytime functioning and obesity,” the American Medical Association adopted a set of guidelines for reducing the potential harm some types of LED streetlights could cause last June. The new guidelines recommend that outdoor lighting shouldn’t have a color temperature above 3,000 degrees kelvin (K). Many of the mobile lights set up in NYCHA housing, including those at the Riis Houses are 1250-watt Allmand Night-Lite Pro II models, which give off light with a color temperature of 3954K….
In launching the initiative, de Blasio said he hoped “to light up the areas that have previously been obscure and problematic, and make it easier for the NYPD to do its job.” But a VICE article argued that the machines were part of a larger strategy of “omnipresence,” which the Times had already reported entails increasing police patrols while deemphasizing interaction with community members. In further illuminating sidewalks teeming with cops, the lights add the impression that police are always watching NYCHA residents….
In a June report in Crain’s, a teenager and resident of a housing block told the reporter, bluntly, “These lights are for you.”