2013/01/01 by Heiner Stahl, Stahl, Heiner
Social Sciences · #Cold War Berlin #European history and politics #Sound studies #acoustic ecology #air traffic #maps #noise pollution #planning #spatio-temporal relations #territory #urban space
paper · pdf · doi:10.12759/hsr.38.2013.3.229-245
openalex publication_date 2013/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The article outlines the spatio-temporal dimensions of air traffic noise and its relation to urban planning and the presumed conditions of public health. Placed in the setting of Cold War Berlin, the measuring and the localization of noise pollution becomes, step by step, a social and political issue. Emerging environmental awareness started challenging the well-established top-down planning procedures concerning inner-city territories. In this essay, the implementation of noise pollution zones at West Berlin airports is linked to modes of policing an urban soundscape, in particular when it comes to the spatial and temporal annoyance induced by noise. When combating air traffic noise, new social movements and environmental experts face different sets of hegemonic rules that organize airspace. This struggle requires a different logic of gaining and “doing territory” than on the city’s street level.