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It comes down to, perhaps, which cities take noise problems seriously and those that don't.
I once read NYC was aiming to the be the quietest big city in the U.S. and I saw the results when visiting there: $350 fines for honking your horns in residential areas of Manhattan, illegal to have a car alarm, banning police sirens (only ambulance/fire sirens permitted) and I never even heard a loud, thumping boom car in Manhattan. Now! Outside Manhattan, in the boroughs, it may be a different story!
I've been to Latin American cities where I lost a lot of sleep at night due to unwarranted noise, like loud disco's where you could hear the blaring music 3 blocks away from your hotel. And the roosters crowing at 5am! In one city I stayed in, in El Salvador, I thought I was really going to get a good night's sleep in this smaller-sized city, and? Evangelical churches scattered around town, blaring their church music on loud speakers, right up until midnite!
For someone as sensitive as noise as I am, which city would I expect get a guaranteed good night's sleep, even with a room facing a city street?
I had a room one time, facing a street, in Paris and the motorcycles/scooters racing along the streets made sleeping almost impossible!
i don't think NYC can possibly reach that goal. Just the ambient noise from having so many people and cars around is very loud. There are some quiet parts though, such as Inwood.
I thought Tokyo could be very quiet. There are many winding roads and nooks and crannies tucked away from the main streets and thoroughfairs. If you're in one of them you are insulated from the greater noise. I wonder if London could have the same areas.
Suburban London can be quiet, but if youre in your local centre, or the city centre, no. It's much improved though due to the Congestion charge, and the Low Emission Zone - before every street was roaring with traffic (notably big construction trucks, buses and delivery vans), or by beeping horns, when average speed was 5mph, or walking speed. You'd often have to yell if talking on the street; and the reason why cafe culture took so much longer to take hold than on the continent. Thankfully most construction traffic is now diverted away or made via the river/ underground even, the buses are now hydrogen run eco-mobiles with quiet engines rather than the belching, wheezing chimneys-on-wheels before, and it effectively charges $150-$300 per day to have a heavy goods vehicle in the centre. To take any other vehicle it still costs $17.
It's still noisy due to the daily footfall and nightlife (500,000 to 1 million punters every night in the premier entertainment district alone), which is spreading out to zones 2-3 now due to the astronomical rents.
The one quiet place after dark is the lean, mean single function financial district of 'The City' which has actively discouraged any residential developments for 50 years, and all the itinerant businesses that would cater to them - pop: 600,000 per sq mile by day, and only 7000 by night. Also home to 120 churches, the only ones in the country that do a good trade weekday lunchtimes but close on the weekends (it's simultaneously the oldest and newest part of the city so alot of history).
I used to live on the outskirts of Inner London, zone 2 - opposite a booming DJ bar, and several noisy bars and restaurants. My landlord wouldnt install double glazing. Not just traffic all night but there'd be screaming drunks, and blaring ambulances using the street as a rat run to local hospitals - you could time them at 2am and 4am. There was also a 24 hr nightclub, with a dwarf bouncer (the biggest dwarf Ive ever seen), so even in the morning you'd hear crap outside at all times of day or morning. Then there was a psychotic restaurant owner who'd empty something from a can/ bucket by hitting it for an hour at close of day (2am). You could tell from the ferocity he was beating his 'drum', and for so long you didn't mess with him. I heard him kick off with a customer once, it wasn't pretty. All this = EARPLUGS.
The year previous I lived off Commercial Street, just outside 'The City' financial district, but very poor, and the most densely populated part of town. Not just the constant 24 hr traffic or helicopters, but once at 4am they started a jackhammer outside the window. He literally must have woken up about 3000 people in 4 tower blocks facing the hole - but not one person opened a window or went out to complain, although Im sure some pens came out for a strongly worded letter. The Brit mentality to a tee.
Now Im out in zone 4, opposite an airport - and it's quiet compared to before. I almost miss the police sirens and helicopters.
I use to live in a hostel last year and the nose was horrendous I lived across the road from South bank University in Elephant & Castle and the noise was unforgivable. Students chatting loudly, trucks going pass, the TRAINS going over the viaduct every 10 minutes and to add insult to injury the hostel was also noisy! The only thing I could do to block the noise was to not open the windows and even then it still didn't help that much.
Where I live now is much quieter though as a type this builders are doing renovations to a house.
I was surprised by how quiet Seoul was. I arrived in early evening, and the traffic into the city was relaxed and unhurried, no horns honked, no tempers frayed. Stayed in inner city hotel on a side street, which felt like Sunday morning when I went out the next day.
In Latin America, contributing to the general city din is regarded as a civic duty.
Kaskinen must be up there. Probably one of the smallest cities in the world, with 1300 inhabitants.
Being a natural port and marketplace, it got city rights in 1785 and designed on a grid pattern. It was meant as become a regional hub, but the people never came, the port lost its significance, and many of the 18th century grid lots are still unbuilt today. It has always been the smallest city in Finland, peaking at hardly 2000 inhabitants. 28% of the populace are over 65, so I don't think they have much noise.
City of Mõisaküla in Estonia, population is 806, so Kaskinen is a big city compared to it.
I believe it's not very noisy there
In 1938, when it got the rights of town the population of it was 2421, however.
If the question applies to cities of any size, most US cities are quiet besides NYC and Chicago. Even LA is pretty quiet.
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