Sound and the healthy city

This special issue of Cities & Health titled Sound and the Healthy City comprises twenty-two articles shedding light, from a variety of distinct disciplinary positions, on how sound can contribute to health. It is aimed at policymakers, academics, practitioners, artists, technologists, urbanists and local people, with its mixture of original scholarship, case studies, visual essays, city shorts, commentaries and think pieces. The editorial that leads this special issue presents the topic of urban sound and health, deliberately moving the focus beyond the level of noise, as commonly expressed in decibels. Instead, setting the tone for the special edition, the editors focus on the concept of soundscape, a more qualitatively nuanced research subject of enquiry, including how people perceive and relate to their sonic environments. In doing so the editors aim to show how sound can positively contribute to health and well-being, through conveying positive emotions and feelings, and resonant values and meanings. Following the leading editorial, we publish a case study developed in Mytilene, Greece by Tsaligopoulos and colleagues where the ecological connectivity of two quiet areas was assessed using the DPSIR (Driving force–Pressure–State–Impact–Response) framework. Results show the potential of this method in preserving urban quiet areas, promoting ecological connectivity and limiting the negative effects of noise on human health and the environment. Then, three city shorts report case studies in USA and Berlin (Germany) addressing environmental noise through the lens of sense of place, environmental and social justice and the implementation of the ‘eRCV project’, a London municipality’s electric refuse collection vehicle. In ‘How can citizen science advance environmental justice? Exploring the noise paradox through sense of place’, Carson and colleagues propose a conceptual model based on sense of place theory to explain how the noise paradox arises and why it raises concerns about equitable access to healthy urban soundscapes. Using a sense-of-place model, they highlight a research strategy based on citizen science that could be employed to discern differences in decibel-based and perception-based assessment of noise, addressing the noise paradox and evaluating implications for individuals living in diverse urban and suburban environments. In the city short ‘Right to party versus right to quietness? Mitigating noise conflicts of free open air events in Berlin’, authored by students from TU Berlin, Weber and colleagues present the Model Space project which was designed to mitigate conflict in public space between people seeking leisure and those needing quiet. They describe the development of a spatial methodology for the identification of spaces that could mitigate conflict at free open-air events. In ‘A London municipality’s electric refuse collection vehicle – ‘The eRCV project”, Helen Steiger gives an account of a London municipality’s electric refuse collection vehicle, that is now operating alongside its diesel counterparts in Greenwich as part of the Royal Borough’s waste management fleet. The project shows that repowered, end of life, electric Refuse Collection Vehicles offer a viable alternative to diesel-powered vehicles to reduce noise, whilst maintaining a high-quality and efficient service that is essential to the city. These three city shorts are followed by a visual essay ‘Chiller plant full-scale acoustic simulation in a quiet neighborhood’ written by Roa, Vetterick and Siebein. This article illustrates dialogues between designers and stakeholders with the acoustic consultant during the design of a new chiller plant at a college in a medium-sized city. In order to understand the noise impact of the proposed chiller plant equipment on the quality of life, a full-scale simulation was constructed to help the community make decisions on which noise mitigation strategy should be used to avoid losing positive elements in the existing soundscape. The next section of the special issue comprises six Commentary and Debate pieces. In ’Soundscape and its contribution to health in the city’, Brigitte Schulte-Fortkamp highlights how the soundscape approach to the acoustic environment underlies a holistic concept based on the expertise of the people involved. She introduces readers to the Soundscape Standard and stresses how there is an urgent need to get communities involved in its use. The extended commentary ‘Healing the urban soundscape: reflections and reverberations’ by Marcia Jenneth Epstein provides a briefing and commentary on the latest Guidelines from the World Health Organization which address the role of noise in damaging health. This essay also draws the reader’s attention to effective developments in design and planning, rooted in the paradigm of soundscape studies, which can contribute to supporting public health through the creation of quiet spaces and soundscape modifications. In ‘Toward a better understanding of pleasant sounds and soundscapes in urban settings’, Eleanor Ratcliffe discusses certain sounds – especially those drawn from nature – which are usually linked to positive outcomes for well-being or quality of life, highlighting an increasing interest in identifying and protecting such sounds within cities to offer opportunities for psychological restoration or recovery. Ratcliffe also argues that explanations of why certain sounds may be perceived positively are limited, suggesting that theoretical development is needed in order to integrate available evidence into wider work on environment and wellbeing. This needs to include attention to perceptual properties of sounds and their interpretations by listeners. The commentary ‘Combined soundwalks and lightwalks’ written by Dietrich Henckel describes the performance of combined soundwalks and lightwalks as a method to investigate and evaluate noise and artificial light at night as relevant stressors for human health and wellbeing. In ‘Acoustic Quality and Health in Urban Environments (SALVE)’, Sutcliffe and colleagues present SALVE, a two-year interdisciplinary pilot study in the Ruhr Region of Germany based on soundscape ecology, that provides a suitable methodical approach to analyze associations between acoustic quality, the built environment, and human health. The authors discuss how SALVE aims to identify criteria for human health-promoting acoustic environments, by making annual direct and automated auditory measurements of a robust land-use sample. This multi-seasonal urban sound dataset will be merged with health data from the population-based Heinz Nixdorf Recall study and will form a starting point for an innovative approach to better understand the impacts of acoustic quality on urban public health beyond noise protection. The last commentary paper ’Urban noise levels are high enough to damage auditory sensorineural health’ authored by Jan L. Mayes highlights how cumulative hazardous urban noise causes auditory sensorineural damage, tinnitus, and hearing impairment in all age groups and it describes how public health noise limits can prevent adverse auditory effects and speech interference disturbing communication. The next section of the journal comprises a reflective praxis article and seven shorter reflective think pieces cutting across academia and practice. The reflective praxis paper ’Developing sound-aware cities: a model for implementing sound quality objectives within urban design and planning processes’ by Maag, Bosshard and Anderson describes a process for facilitating communication about sound and the public realm between a variety of urban actors. This process is based on an experience-led model that includes guided walks, interdisciplinary discussions, and the cooperative production of site-specific infographics. In the think piece ‘Supporting healthier urban environments with a sound and noise curriculum for students’, Arline L. Bronzaft introduces readers to the Sound and Noise Module – a New York City Department of Environmental Protection’s educational curricula for school children, from the low grades through high school, that would teach them about the beauty of good sounds and the dangers of loud sounds and noise. Barry Truax, in ‘Acoustic Sustainability in Urban Design: Lessons from World Soundscape Project’, discusses how the pioneering work of the World Soundscape Project in North America and Europe in the 1970s has laid a foundation for acoustic ecology, soundscape composition and a model of the acoustic community. Based on this work, the author suggests some guiding principles for the qualitative aspects of urban acoustic design and sustainability that address quality of life issues. The following think piece ’Adaptive soundscape design for liveable urban spaces: a hybrid methodology across environmental acoustics and sonic art’ by Cobianchi, Drever and Lavia presents doctoral research under development at Goldsmiths University of London, aimed at identifying and implementing soundscape improvement strategies in urban areas. This is based on placing outdoor loudspeakers and the use of a computer-based system for adaptive soundscape generation, integrating sonic art practice with acoustic engineering rigour. In ’Hidden geographies: design for neurodivergent ways of hearing and sensing’ Danielle Toronyi discusses how acoustics are a dominant sensory component of the city, that may significantly impact Autistic people’s experience of the urban environment. She presents a research project comprising a qualitative evaluation of Autistic adults’ sensory and acoustic experience of urban space through an embodied ethnographic study, which is aimed at developing guidelines for inclusive design which accommodates the auditory and sensory needs of subjects on the Autistic spectrum. Waters and colleagues in ‘Tranquil City: identifying opportunities for urban tranquillity to promote healthy lifestyles’ discuss how rest and recuperation are fundamental to well-being and how experiencing tranquil spaces can support this need amid stressful urban living. They also present the Tranquil Pavement London project, which helps people discover and share tranquil spaces and navigate the city via low pollution pathways. In ‘Perceptual evaluation of the citizen’s acoustic environment from classic noise monitoring’, Alsina-Pagès and colleagues propose a step forward in the analysis of citizens’ perception of noise annoyance. To this end, the authors assess the acoustic environment by conducting perceptual tests on data gathered in a noise monitoring network, aiming at analysing the degree of annoyance caused by different sounds and studying how this is related to psychoacoustic parameters. The final think piece ’Marketing sonic thinking with creative visualization: getting decision-makers to listen’ by Williams and Morrow discusses how sound artists’ and musicians’ knowledge can make a difference in the planning and construction of healthy cities. It also reflects on the challenges faced by the authors in their practice, represented by communicating their knowledge about the importance of sound to visually oriented professionals who design and manage urban spaces. The authors also outline their learnings in order to develop principles for visualizing sonic environments that can help decision-makers to listen to and with them. The final section of this special issue is devoted to two empirical scholarships and a conceptual paper. The empirical original scholarship ‘Resonance – soundscapes of material and immaterial qualities of urban spaces’ by Wiemann Nielsen, Jørgensen and Braa presents a case study set in Copenhagen and Amsterdam, with the aim of researching four typologies of urban public space in both cities through the lens of ‘quiet’ and ‘resonance’. Results indicate that the urban environment has the potential of offering environmental and existential resonance, and points to relations between sound quality and built density. Based on these initial findings the authors suggest that soundscape information may offer inspiration for rethinking compact city characteristics such as density and intensity, potentially stimulating cultural uniqueness and diversity and inspire ‘new typology thinking’. The next empirical scholarship ‘Mobile crowd-sensing as a resource for contextualized urban public policies: a study using three use cases on noise and soundscape monitoring’ was written by Lefevre and colleagues. The authors discuss the complex relationship between environmental noise and its perception by the citizens, highlighting the importance of collecting and aggregating contextualized – both quantitative and qualitative – data about the urban environmental noise so as to be able to study the objective and subjective relationships between sound and living beings. Specifically, the authors investigate how Mobile Phone Sensing – i.e. crowd-sensing – enables the gathering of such knowledge, by presenting three case studies carried out in France and Finland, where MPS was used as a tool for sensitizing citizens and decision-makers about noise pollution and for increasing knowledge about the impact of environmental noise on people’s health and well-being in relation to its physical and subjective perception. The conceptual paper ‘Flying, health and the city: sensing aeromobility and risk in an informal settlement’ by Rink & Klaas closes this special issue. In this article the authors explore the relationships between flying, health and the city from the perspective of an informal settlement called Freedom Farm in Cape Town, South Africa. Located underneath the flight path for Cape Town International Airport. Using semi-structured interviews with Freedom Farm residents and participant observation, this study explores the terrestrial experience and associated perceptions of health risks of aeromobility from the vantage point of informal dwellers. Findings indicate that the perceived risks from aeromobility are numerous and are exacerbated by the proximity of low-flying aircraft. While the residents of Freedom Farm are not themselves air passengers or crew, this research also finds that residents nonetheless have unique experiences of aeromobility that they use to construct knowledge of a mobility practice that boosts the health of the city-region while it impacts negatively on their well-being. We hope you, our readers, enjoy this eclectic series of papers, which serves as a rich tour of contemporary issues, thinking and research into urban sound. We hope these papers take you beyond noise and annoyance into the field of urban soundscape, and of course, city sound and health. On behalf of the Editorial Board we would like to thank all of the authors and reviewers for this special issue, which has been long in development and then delayed as it neared completion by the COVID-19 crisis. We also want to thank our special issues partners, The Quiet Coalition, the Building Health Lab and ALD – the Noise Control Association of the German Acoustic Society. They have been instrumental in soliciting articles by promoting the call for papers and we look forward to their help in disseminating the thoughts, and what we hope will be seen as innovative vision, contained in this volume.