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Comment by rickydroll | Hacker News Reader

Multifamily housing is not terribly popular here in New England, mostly because developers are cheap ass bastards and skimp on noise proofing. When my partner was renting in a two-family house, we could hear the landlord's child running, yelling, screaming, and dropping things. It was hell. It was one of the primary motivations for us to get our own house. My only experience with good multifamily housing was in Estonia, where the walls were thick and didn't pass sound at all.

Row houses are an interesting solution as long as there is a 30 dB or greater sound attenuation between apartments and a 90-minute firewall between them. Row housing is also interesting because it allows for the inclusion of a garage and charging infrastructure beneath the house, as well as a space to store home-scale batteries charged by your rooftop solar panels.

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Imagine though, some people might not be able to afford a place with more sound-proofing. Mandating it doesn't magically make it free. This is how we ended up in the situation we have in the first place where its too expensive to get a roof over your head because of hundreds of little rules and stipulations. Would I prefer to sleep under a highway overpass or sleep in an apartment where the bedroom doesn't have a window? Would I really care?

And just because you mind living with noise doesn't mean everyone does. Why should we outright ban places like that if there are people who might not be able to afford something better, or don't care and would like to save some money?

Like, your entire comment is part of the goddamn problem. Don't legislate your preferences.

There’s a good argument for not “leaving it to the market” for things like this: when you’re evaluating an apartment (to rent, or even to buy), it can be difficult to know what the soundproofing is like. Noise is maybe not life and death, but it’s a major quality of life issue for some people.

Of course an outright ban is pretty extreme, but alternatives to overcoming this information asymmetry are not straightforward. Ideally: compulsory testing and disclosure, if it could be done.

Just because someone thinks they can stand higher noise levels doesn't mean they should. Urban noises and light levels are associated with a significant number of adverse health outcomes. Like food and medications, housing shouldn't compromise your health.

The original start of this whole thread included a list of things the author wanted to see happen, which falls into the same category as legislating preferences, or, as I see it, a baseline that is higher than what we have today.

The loudest thing I have to deal with living in Chicago is the roar of car traffic on Western Ave (at times it hits 80-90dB), fucking leaf blowers, and the shitheads on my block who floor their shitty dirt bikes every once in a while. Motors, usually internal combustion, make up the bulk of my noise floor.

I'd deal with having to hear the neighbors fighting every once in a while vs never having to hear some small-penised individual revving his stupid engine ever again. One way of getting closer to that is building more dense housing cheaper. If we're talking about urban noise floors, start at the real fucking problem.

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