Noise in cities is primarily driven by cars. Densification if done right could even make things quieter (e g. Reduce stroads and have more bicycles)
It's surprising how much a bit of distance helps too. Just a street back from a stroad and you're already much better off sound wise. We don't have to abandon roads just be smarter with where we put faster roads (50kmph+ is probably not what people think of as fast but I find that is when noise is at unpleasant levels to those on the street. As well, it's tires not exhaust noise causing the majority of noise)
There are probably people reading this who like me thought nothing of road noise, no big deal, just a fact of life. But spaces are so much nicer without rushing cars on the majority of thoroughfares.
I chose this house, I’m not complaining, but I would enjoy a world with less to zero cars.
The issue is that people don't care about the noise on the street nearly as much as they do about the noise inside their dwelling. And car noise doesn't make it inside the houses while people noise does, and, with the dense housing, often originated in the same building. And a microphone outside an apartment complex will indeed fail to record e.g. a fitness enthusiast on top of your bedroom setting an emergency lifting reps record at 3:30 am.
I live in a college town, but I do not live in a college community. As such, the city has rather strict and extensive ordinances against noise, such as that generated by parties. Therefore, both the landlady and law enforcement are on our side if we ever have trouble with noisy neighbors.
I don't know how it is in other cities. I've heard from friends who lived in Manhattan that sometimes the noise was intolerable, but nothing could be done about it. Perhaps if neighbors don't care about neighbors, that's what happens. We have yet to progress to such anarchy around here, fortunately.
Oh really? I’m sitting inside my apartment listening to car noise right now. Our apartment sits away from the street too, probably 150ft away.
That's your problem right there. I figure if I opened the window on the opposite side of the house and there were no wind, birds and insects I could easily hear traffic too. The difference between this and having people behind your wall, floor and ceiling is that you can close the window whenever you want. You cannot do much with the neighbors.
Window open, about 4m away from it at my desk, noise level is 45-55dB.
Window closed, 25-27dB.
Almost all of it is car noise.
In any case, yes - it's relatively dense and car noise is very high. When I closed the window I could finally hear my tinnitus against the backdrop of near silence. I didn't realise how much the street noise was affecting me either, even though it was constant.
There are definitely advantages to living in a condo or apartment, but the reality is that living in close proximity to a bunch of other people is going to be noisier. New condos tend to be better, but impact noise in particular still carries to adjacent units. Same with noise carrying from common areas like hallways.
I live in car-ridden Suburbia now. When my relatives from the dense city visit, they are blown away by the silence.
Maybe things are different in Japan, but everything is different in Japan.
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The noisiest vehicles in the centre of Copenhagen seem to be diesel delivery vans, so it's a decent improvement as these are swapped for electric ones.
Tire noise is negligible at very low speeds, but diesel engines are noisy. So in a dense city, you notice the noisy trucks with their clacking engines. In an American city, vehicles are whizzing by at 100+kph on multi-lane roads or highways, so you hear tire noise, even from a distance.
Making all the cars in America electric isn't going to do anything about highway noise. But making all the trucks in Tokyo electric would really make the roads here a lot quieter (and they're already pretty quiet, it just depends on where you go; places with lots of stores need trucks, whereas neighborhoods don't).
Slowly driven electric cars are slightly quieter than slowly driven petrol/diesel cars, but the greater improvement is the slowly driven vans, trucks, refuse lorries and so on.
(Especially the electric refuse lorries! No more loud diesel thing emptying bins at silly-in-the-morning.)
Which is precisely why their traffic composition is different than that of American cities. I absolutely believe that the lowest-hanging fruit in many of Copenhagen’s streets are diesel delivery trucks. I do not believe that American cities have adopted the kind of forward-thinking policies that would have reduced other sources of traffic noise to the point where those are the largest contributors.