Comment by teslabox
Low pressure sodium lights were more efficient, but they emit a single wavelength of orange light. These lights were strongly disliked by people who liked to admire their car in the streetlights (I suppose).
> residential streets mostly had lamps with white fluorescent lights,
… they used CFLs? The spiral fluorescents were invented in the 1980’s, I guess. I speculate the residential street lights used mercury vapor bulbs, which had a longer expected lifespan than fluorescents.
> But still, I'm wondering: what about curtains, window blinds etc.?
You need a good blackout curtain to deal with light pollution through your window.
Decades ago, my junior college's parking lot was lit by low-pressure sodium lighting. I recall the light being an absolute monochrome yellow, to the point that you had to be careful to remember exactly where you parked your car, because you weren't going to find it by color.
I can't vouch for Germany, but there used to be long, high-output fluorescent tubes and fixtures for street lighting in the US. They seem to have largely disappeared by the 1980s. They weren't very common, but some cities used them. They tended to be used on main streets when I saw them.