Every argument about new technology eventually trots out the 1819 Cologne newspaper piece that supposedly called gas street lighting an insult to the night, bad for health and a gift to drunks. It always lands as a joke.
What was the best version of that worry? Who actually opposed lit streets, and why? Cost, taxes, policing, sleep? Did any of it turn out right?
Cost and taxes feel like the serious half of that list. Somebody had to pay for gas pipes and lamplighters on every street, and the Cologne piece reads like the satire version of a fight about who pays. It reminds me of how every new city service gets argued now, with the health worry out front and the bill underneath.
Sleep is the one that aged well. Nobody measured light at night in 1819, and now it's a whole research field.
The 1819 Cologne case against gas street lamps gets used as a dunk on every new technology. What was the real worry?