Today’s invention is a streetlamp which has the light located at the base of the internally polished shaft.
This arrangement is topped by a lightweight, aerodynamic, curved mirror onto which the light is shone, so that the area around the base is illuminated.
Using this approach, lamps are less vulnerable to vibration and vandalism but the main benefit is a saving on wiring and maintenance costs, since the lamps can be replaced at ground level, without recourse to a ‘cherrypicker’.
One possible problem: there is now a hot lamp near ground level. Careful heat management would be required to make sure it doesn’t get too hot. That’s less of an issue when the lamp is at the top of the pole.
A few well-placed ventilation holes should probably overcome this issue (but the lamp might actually need to be at head height, to avoid floodwater, dogs and casual insertion of flammable trash by passers-by).