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<br /> <br />TURN DOWN THE LIGHTS . <br />It is .probably true that illuminating a subjurban <br />14 street to the level of the infield at Comiske~- Park <br />reduces accidents, especially for people who leave their <br />regular glasses at home and have to drive in sunglasses. <br />For everyone else, though, towering, garish.sodiumtvapor <br />street lamps intrude on the peacefulness of the night with <br />the insistence of a stuck horn. Where safety is nod a big <br />issue, why not use several smaller lamps that 'cast a <br />gentler glow and let you see the stars? <br />OUT BEYOND THE BELTWAY, <br />where the roads are narrow <br />1 and blacktop, past the point at <br />which the dwindling traffic is too sparse <br />to warrant plucking by even the mingi- <br />est motor court, there's a beautiful land. <br />There are pale green corn plants poking <br />through the brown soil, lakes glimpsed <br />through trees, cholla cactus among the <br />tumbled red rocks. It's not wilderness, <br />but countryside, the unfinished canvas <br />of America. It tells us where we aze-in <br />Illinois, Maine or Texas-and it locates <br />us in time: summer, fall, winter, spring. <br />There's nothing to buy there, nowhere <br />to park; it dcesn t lure us with golden <br />azches or free coffee mugs with afill-up. <br />It's just there. <br />And by the same token, it isn't making <br />anyone rich, yet. There is a gradient <br />of value that runs from the city to <br />the country, and it keeps moving out- <br />ward; pick any spot and it's just a matter <br />of time before it makes the magical tran- <br />sition from "countryside" to "real <br />estate." The process seems inevitable, <br />but it isn't, really. It's the product <br />of concrete decisions made in an age <br />when roads were still viewed as the <br />harbingers of civilization rather than <br />discount muffler outlets. And as surely <br />as our society made those decisions, <br />it can change them, before lawn meets <br />lawn and asphalt meets asphalt, cover- <br />ing the land in a seamless carpet <br />of sprawl. <br />SANDY F'EI ~F:K'I'1 LU. <br />Developer Turley on the village green in Harbor Town <br /> <br />:.. 1 ~'"~ <br />~~ <br />, I~ <br />-~:, `~ <br />.. _ ~ .. <br />• <br />A garish street lamp in Maryvale, a neighborhood in Phoenix I <br />