![]() ![]() Studies have shown that people who live or work in loud environments are particularly susceptible to long-term health problems, and generally, it is the working classes and people of color who bear the brunt of urban noise exposure. Noise triggers the stress hormone cortisol, damages blood vessels over time and contributes to cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, heart attacks and coronary heart disease other consequential physical and mental ailments include stress, sleep disturbances, speech interference, hearing loss, reduced productivity, headaches, respiratory agitation, gastritis, colitis, hypertension and tinnitus, among others. A 2017 study of 365,000 people in Britain and Norway found that traffic noise affects human blood biochemistry, more so than exhaust fumes. Over 100 million people in Europe are currently exposed to harmful levels of noise, according to the European Environmental Agency, and around a million lives are lost to conditions exacerbated by loud sounds. Even as cities become denser and louder, policies for noise rarely go beyond the level of attempting to limit it. City planners have never really incorporated our aural senses into urban design. The effects of sound are all the more intense in cities: huge cauldrons of noise. It is also, for the most part, inescapable. ![]() ![]() The thrum of noise causes our bodies to vibrate and is processed by the brain anywhere from 20 to 100 times faster than we can see, depending on its pitch and rhythm. The human body is around 60% water, which is a potent conductor of sound waves, and the brain and the heart, both of which are associated with processing feelings, are even more liquid - 73% water. Sound can move through anything (except a vacuum), anytime: at night, around corners, through solid material. There is so much noise around us that our brains have developed to select only the most critical sounds, though ambient, non-selected noise also can have a substantial effect on our health and well-being. Unless suffering from hearing loss, humans process acoustic impressions 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Hearing, like breathing, is an automatic process. In Rotterdam, at least, city planners are listening: Soundtrackcity is curating seven public sites, Hofplein being one, into places of meaningful sensory experiences. He maintains that sound should be reconsidered as a fundamental component of the lived environment, rather than a byproduct to be ignored or minimized, and that urban life now and in the future requires a healthy soundscape, one in which the focus is not on the decibels but the quality of the sounds. For Huijsman, an artist turned urban researcher and the director of Soundtrackcity, an Amsterdam-based multidisciplinary agency that produces sound art in public spaces, noise is neither a nuisance nor permanent, but rather an indispensable building block for cities where people want to live, stay and recreate.Īsked to characterize Hofplein in a recent survey, residents by and large used variations of “noisy”: “chaotic,” “busy,” “restless,” “irritating,” “noise-like,” “constant humming,” “fucking noisy!”. Often, Huijsman said, the automated bells will activate by mistake, making the ringing almost constant and “effectively pointless.” Just last month he questioned eight of the city’s councilors about it, all of whom said it was not something they had given thought to.įor policymakers, this is the natural background noise of a city: inevitable, eternal, largely accepted tumult. The tram is one of 100 that pass through the square each hour. Standing on the northern edge of Hofplein - one of the busiest intersections in the city, formed where the Weena, the Schiekade and the Coolsingel meet - he is trying to escape the cacophony of cars and a warning bell sounding its alarm as a tram approaches. ROTTERDAM, Netherlands - Michiel Huijsman is holding both hands over his ears. Lauren Kelly is a writer based in London. ![]()
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