ever,the Transit Authority estimates passenger load on buses andon-time performance of trains and buses by using sampling.Proper sampling would provide a better indication of how“noisy” the system is
This is another "will, not way" example. The TA says it's too hard to measure noise. But the author points out that they measure other things like passenger numbers all the time using the same method. They have the way, they just don't have the will.
dmaintenance requires attention being paid to rail welding andrepair of loose bolts, two areas involved in noise reduction;but at the same time, a comprehensive maintenance programalso needs to be in place to pay attention to the integrity ofthe entire system, and such attention will result in saveddollars
This is the author's most important recommendation. The TA says fixing noise is too expensive. The author argues that this is wrong. She says that fixing noise like welding the rails is just good maintenance, and good maintenance saves the city money in the long run.
After 1995, no further annual reports were required by statelaw (state law only lasted 12 years); and, as a result, no furtherreports were prepared by the Authority. Th
This is why the problem continues. The law that forced the TA to act expired in 1995. After that, they stopped reporting, and the progress stopped. The "will" was gone.
in 1982, the state legislature passed the Rapid Transit NoiseCode. This bill mandated the Transit Authority (a subsidiaryof the overseeing agency the Metropolitan TransportationAuthority) to assess the extent of noise from its noise sourcesand implement programs to gradually reduce the noise. The
This is a key fact. The Transit Authority did fix things when the state government passed a law that forced them to. This supports the author's "matter of will" argument. The law created the "will."
ater study[13] was conducted andit was found that the children on both sides of the buildingwere now reading at the same level, demonstrating, indeed,that the noise-abatement measures were effective.
This is the follow-up study. After the city fixed the noise by adding rubber pads to the tracks, the reading scores for all the kids became equal. This proves that the noise was the cause of the learning problem.
e study found thatthe children in classrooms that were exposed to the elevatedtrain tracks were nearly a year behind in reading scores by thesixth grade
This is the author's own study from 1975. This is shocking evidence. It shows that the train noise caused students to lose a full year of learning.
growing body of literature demonstrating the adverse effects of noise on physical and mental health raises the questionas to whether transit noise is hazardous to the health of New York City’s transit riders and residents living near thetransit system. Several studies have examined the impacts of the noise of New York’s transit system on hearing, healthand learning. D
The author starts by explaining that this is not just a small problem. Subway noise is a serious issue that can hurt people's health and make it harder for children to learn.
This framework goes beyond just meetingregulatory limits; it is about fostering a nighttime acoustic environment that contributes to the serenity of thecommunity.
I like this part. The author says we should not just follow the minimum rules. We should try to create a city that feels peaceful for everyone. It's not just about avoiding fines; it's about making the community a better place to live.
Additionally, the pub (or bar) owner should ensure that their external walls should be a minimum of 100 mmconcrete precast panels, and double glazed windows and doors (say 8 mm to 10 mm laminated glasses with a75 mm to 100 mm air gap) should be closed.25 This type of design can have an acoustic insulation of around 40dB.
This is a very useful and specific solution. It explains a technical way to reduce noise—using special windows. It even says how much noise it can block (around 40 dB).
In the US, the number of noise complaints about bars and clubs increased by over 100 percentfrom 38,000 in 2010 to 93,000 in 2015 in New York City.
This statistic is very powerful. It shows that in just five years, the number of complaints in New York City more than doubled. This proves that the problem is not getting better; it is getting much worse. It is a clear trend.
The survey results showed that 41% of respondents suffered from anxiety while 35% ofrespondents suffered from disturbed sleep due to noise
This is a direct link between bar noise and health problems. It's not just about being annoyed. The noise causes real mental health issues like anxiety and sleep problems for many people. This is very strong evidence for my research.
Pubs (a short form of public houses) and bars are an integral part of cities across the globe. They serveimportant social functions and are recognized as a tourist attraction in many places.
This part is important because it explains why we can't just close all the bars. They are important for the city's culture and for tourism. This shows that the problem is not simple; we have to find a balance between nightlife and quiet for residents.
Previousresearch showed that the average measured noise level in Hong Kong’s pubs and bars was 80 dBA in peakhours (with peak measured value up to 97 dBA) and 75 dBA in happy hours.
This is a important statistic from the study. It gives specific numbers for how loud bars are. 80 dBA is very loud, like a garbage disposal. This is solid data I can use to show how big the problem is.
This is the main reason why, although citizensstill believe in the government’s ability to eliminate unwantedsounds (as the high number of calls received by both institu-tions indicate), most complaints end up in administrative limbo.
This is the author's final answer. The system breaks down because the government's tools don't work well together. There are legal rules (judiciary), enforcement actions (disciplinary), and scientific health standards (biopolitical), but they are disconnected. As a result, even though people keep calling and complaining, their problems get stuck in an "administrative limbo," a space where nothing gets resolved.
The Bars and Restaurants Union claimed that theordinance would eliminate up to 120,000 jobs in the city (Folhade São Paulo 1999).
This shows a major obstacle to noise control: money. When the city tried to pass a law forcing bars to close at 1 a.m., the business union fought back, claiming it would destroy jobs. This turns the debate away from residents' right to sleep and toward the city's economic health, making it much harder for politicians to pass strict noise laws.
The zerotolerance approach is tangible, for instance, in recent policeattempts to eliminate “noisy” youth street parties in the city’spoor peripheries.
The police aren't just responding to calls; they are proactively trying to shut down entire events, specifically targeting youth parties in poor neighborhoods. This "zero tolerance" strategy, borrowed from New York City's policies in the 1990s, treats noise not as a nuisance but as a sign of disorder that must be crushed to prevent crime. This is a much more aggressive form of "sound-politics."
t if it is just a guy hanging out in the plaza,we won’t go because there is nothing wrong with that” (per-sonal communication, 2012). As a result, what could be seen assimply dirt, lack of public lighting, or loud music is graduallylinked to “suspicious” activities. Similar to what BenjaminChesluk observed in his ethnography of security council meet-ings in New York City in the early 2000s, citizens request policeintervention by learning how to describe their problems fromthe police’s perspective, what the author calls “broken windowsstories” (Chesluk 2004:254).
This is fascinating. People know that just complaining about "noise" won't get the police to come. So, they learn to describe the situation in a way that sounds more like a crime-in-progress, talking about "suspicious" people, drugs, or weapons. They tell "broken windows stories" to make their problem seem more urgent and force the police to act.
I researched the legal definition of “administrative sealing,”and it includes putting large stone blocks in front of theestablishment to keep the owner from opening it. Th
This is a powerful example of how enforcement can become extreme. Major Rosado didn't just issue fines; he physically blocked businesses with concrete blocks. This shows that the "instability" of noise control isn't just about rules being confusing; it's also about how different leaders can interpret and enforce those rules in very different ways
n both cases, residents and police officersframe community noise as a broken window that needs to beidentified and fixed right away to prevent the occurrence ofmore serious crime.
This is a key connection. The police don't see noise just as an annoyance; they see it through the lens of the "broken windows" theory. They believe that ignoring small problems like loud parties signals that "no one cares," which can lead to more serious crimes later on. This explains why the police are involved at all and why they connect noise to public safety.
I believe the former can contribute withthe specificity and heterogeneity of the ethnographic investi-gation, while the latter can help us locate state power less asconstraints upon citizens than as the effect of the mobilizationand stabilization of actor
Here, the author explains his main tools for analysis. He's combining two big theories: ANT (Actor-Network Theory) to show all the specific people and things involved (like forms, meters, officers), and Foucault's "governmentality" to understand how the state tries to manage people. This tells me his goal isn't just to describe the problem, but to break down how power works in a very detailed way.
While noise-as-nuisance is the channel to discipline based on notions of ci-vility and public order, noise-as-decibel is part of a “set ofmechanisms through which the basic biological features of thehuman species became the object of a political strategy” (Fou-cault 2007:16).
This is the key takeaway for understanding "sound-politics." The author explains that the state tries to control noise in two conflicting ways: one is based on the subjective idea of "nuisance" (annoying behavior), and the other is based on the objective, scientific measurement of "decibels" (physical harm). This conflict makes noise incredibly difficult for the government to manage.
With very few residents willing to go to the police station to filea report, complaints become institutional noise rather thancommunity silence.
The author makes a clever point here. There are so many noise complaints, but they rarely become official police reports. As a result, the endless calls just become "institutional noise" that clogs up the police system instead of actually making the community quieter.
hile this extensive assemblageof actors, spread across documents and offices, is deployedto stabilize the fine and solve her problem, Ms. Freire mightcome to the conclusion that the PSIU is either corrupt or in-efficient—perhaps both!
This story about Ms. Freire's complaint shows just how slow and frustrating the government process is. Even though the system is technically working, it's so slow that the person who made the complaint feels like the government is failing her. This highlights the massive gap between rules on paper and real-world results.
I present law enforcement assemblages asboth unstable and heterogeneous, managed by people withdifferent (and often diverging) expectations regarding how thecity should sound.
The author doesn't see law enforcement as a single, unified body. Instead, he describes it as an "unstable and heterogeneous" network of people who often disagree on how the city should sound. This means the police and the anti-noise agency have different goals and ideas.
heheterogeneity of “noise” as an umbrella concept, the complexity of its scientific mensuration, and the unsteadiness of itslegal encoding make this a particularly difficult object for the state to grasp.
This is the core argument of the whole article. The author claims the government struggles to handle noise because "noise" itself is a vague concept, it's hard to measure scientifically, and the laws for it are shaky. This sets the stage for everything else.