I'm known to use it on occasion to make a point. ;-)

Sure, a few constellations can be made out. But everyone clicking out their kitchen lights still will not make much of a difference. My memories of LA, even back in the seventies, before the huge growth into OC and other suburbs, was of a pinkish, yellowish "light" band on the horizon that obscured somewhere around 30 degrees of sky & stars in whatever direction one looked.

But yes, if one walked out on the end of a pier, or somewhere fewer lights were, basic constellations could be made out, without too much effort. Still, hardly an astronomer's paradise.

Forgive me my hyperbole...

;-)