Interview with Leni Schwendinger  schwendinger interview page
      Image credit: Kit Noble   Recently, you've been giving
guided evening tours of the light scapes of major cities. What
are examples of well lit and poorly lit cities? What are some of
the key things people seem to take away from these tours? What
surprises people about the impact of good and bad urban lighting
design?  I just did a light walk in Washington, D.C.
In retrospect, I thought the lighting of the city was adequate
but it wasn’t at all interesting. What we’re trying to
understand better is who owns the lighting, who is responsible
for the nighttime environment. Basically, it's city
agencies, sometimes utilities. The lighting system that we rely
on and takes care of us at night is street lighting. It’s
focused on the streets, but what about the sidewalks? What we
learn from sidewalk lighting is that most is from storefront and
private lighting -- display windows and sconces on buildings and
all the kinds of building-mounted lights that