Photo credit: Adrien Olichon
by Arline L. Bronzaft, Ph.D., Board of Directors, GrowNYC, Co-founder, The Quiet Coalition, and Honorary Chair, Quiet American Skies
Readers of our blog might be familiar with the term “soundscape.” But we learn in this article, published by Resilience.org, a program of the nonprofit Post Carbon Institute, that the term might date back to the late 60s when Michael Southworth first used it to describe a response to the “sonic invasion” in city environments. Writer Eduardo Sasso describes noise as a risk factor to our mental and physical health. Sasso writes that there are sounds in our environment that impact us positively, but we speak far less often about how a positive environment can contribute to the well-being of city dwellers.
To support positive urban centers, Sasso says that certain actions need to be taken. Public transit and cycling may be less toxic than cars and planes, but increasing walking paths makes things less noisy and healthier for city dwellers. The same goes for green space, which supports rest and recreation. Sasso also advocates for more plants and notes that cities can turn vacant lots into edible gardens. Remember, when we make urban areas less noisy, we can hear the wonderful sounds of birds.
Sasso ends the piece by suggesting how urban residents can create more positive areas in their neighborhoods. This includes policies to report noise pollution, trash collections that don’t disrupt sleep, business patents that comply with noise abating designs and the introduction of ways to quiet our roads.
Remember that noise harms health, while quiet enhances it.
