2014/12/18 by Jack Fong · 14 citations
Health Professions · Environmental Science · Engineering · #Noise Effects and Management #Urban Green Space and Health #Acoustic Wave Phenomena Research #Soundscape #Noise pollution #Typology #Noise (video) #Sociology #Argument (complex analysis) #Environmental noise #Sound (geography) #History #Aesthetics #Acoustics #Noise reduction #Computer science #Anthropology #Art #Artificial intelligence
paper · doi:10.1177/0042098014562333
published in Urban Studies 53(1), 173-192 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2014/12/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
Employing components of Murray Schafer’s soundscape typology from his inimitable 1977 work, The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World, my exploratory study qualitatively and comparatively explores the sonic landscape and noise pollution ‘texture’ of Bangkok, Thailand and Los Angeles, California. By employing Schafer’s soundscape concepts to explain how people subjectively accommodate and generate the noises and sounds of cities, I hope to move beyond the conventional quantitative measurements of sound through decibels. The study argues that urban sociology’s blind spot is that qualitative examinations of the sonic environment have not been undertaken. By making operative Schafer’s soundscape concepts I make the preliminary argument that a qualitative understanding of urban noise reveals social structure insofar as cultural accommodations of noise, urban configurations of a city and degrees of development of a city are concerned.