Runway edge lights are not as bright as street lights, they have completely different functions. For the approach lights, if you watch any of the following videos, you’ll notice how the approach lights “blend-in” with the other surrounding lights, nearly impossible to distinguish until you get under 5nm. The runway lights are even dimmer, you don’t pick these up until closer.
Now, if these airports were not surrounded by city lights, you would be able to pick them up sooner, but still not at the distances currently depicted in the sim (see last video). FL300 is only 5nm from the closest point on the ground, so yes, you could see the lights, but the sim is currently displaying the approach and REIL lights at more than 20nm away which is not realistic. At that distance, you would only be able to see the airport beacon, nothing else.
In this video, the approach lights are not competing with City lights, so they are more noticeable from further out, but still not as bright as the sim currently shows,
