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Cities aren't inherently louder than countryside. Car traffic is noisy, but the volume is proportional to the speed. Cars going 30 km/h aren't THAT noisy. You d
by ajuc 5y ago
Cities aren't inherently louder than countryside. Car traffic is noisy, but the volume is proportional to the speed. Cars going 30 km/h aren't THAT noisy. You don't hear them through the windows. Cars going 90 km/h are VERY noisy and at that point it doesn't matter if they are electric or not - you mostly hear the tires and the aerodynamics.
Using car horns at cities is forbidden anyway, unless there's a crash or a dangerous situation you shouldn't hear them. I can't remember the last time I've heard a car horn in my city.
I've lived in countryside and in several places in 2 different big cities in Poland, and except for one time I lived near a big 4-lane road in the middle of the city (which is a disgrace of communist urban planning BTW) - cities were quieter than the countryside.
Cars are going faster in the countryside and dogs are constantly barking at night at anything that moves.
BTW another factor is windows quality. It significantly changes how quiet your home is.
- sarchertech 5y agoAll else being equal, more people = more noise. Since all else isn’t equal, you could design cities that are quieter than the most suburbs. But you could also design suburbs that are quieter than most cities. In the US at least I linked a study that showed cities are far louder on average.
- ajuc 5y agoYou cannot have significantly more people/square meter with everything else remaining equal. Cities are like stars - quantitative change in density causes qualitative change in behavior. Once you have density high enough you can't live in separate houses. People move to commieblocks or other kinds of multitenant buildings. This shifts everything closer together, makes public transport profitable and having a car becomes optional. These kinds of neighborhoods are quieter than the countryside usually. It looks like this: https://spoldzielnialsm.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Obecnie_3_800.jpg https://spoldzielnialsm.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Obecni... https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ud9-Z0UHVHg/W7-qUjfNT9I/AAAAAAAAiME/gyl2o6EGVXgI9ahveeSH7PZ9OdrlOWvvQCLcBGAs/s1600/2018.05.27.%2BLublin%252C%2BLSM%2Bz%2Bdrona-2.jpg https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ud9-Z0UHVHg/W7-qUjfNT9I/AAAAAAAAi... Or if you're insane you can mandate enough parking space that this doesn't happen and instead you have highrises in the sea of parking lots.
- bjoli 5y agoWe moved to a townhouse 2km from the city centre after living 15km outside the city and the difference in noise is staggering. We had a mildly trafficked 70km/h road about 150m from our house (with a property in between) and the noise from that road was more or less constant. We could hear cars from almost a kilometre away over the open fields, so one car per minute meant almost constant noise. Now we live in a not-so-popular area built during a great housing programme in the 60s ("miljonprogrammet" in Swedish) and we love it. Lots of green areas, all parking is in the outer perimeter so we have almost no traffic. The modern areas built in town are nowhere near as well planned from a life quality perspective. I am not anonymous (nor even pseudonymous) here, so I might as well mention that the area is Vilbergen in the city of Norrköping.
- sjg007 5y agoThat sounds great. I hate cars and traffic and trains.