Crowd funding is helping to light up Highland Park's streets.
Last year, D.T.E. energy removed 13 hundred street lights, poles and all, when the city was unable to pay its light bill for over 5 years.
So A. J. O’Neil, a café owner, decided to lead a group to buy solar streetlights that would have little ongoing expense.
"I think", he says, "that Highland Park is going to show that providing lighting without that monthly bill is doable in a urban environment."
O’Neil turned to the web as a way to help fund each of the 6 thousand dollar lights using indiegogo.com.
He's raised 90 percent of the costs for the first of what he hopes will soon be hundreds of lights all over the city. The lights are built by Solar Street Lights in Holland, Michigan.
- Chris Zollars
