I appreciate peace and quiet too, which is why I mentioned soundproofing. IIUC the standards for condos in my area are considerably stricter in this regard than those for apartments. I'd support raising the apartment standards to match.

As the sister comment said, noise isolation is what you want. I live in an apartment with masonry walls and floors, and I basically cannot hear anything from my neighbours. The most I hear is tap tap tap when someone above is walking with heels on.

Now if you have any ideas for noise outside I'm open :-) A hipster bar opened opposite last year (when we moved in there was a commercial unit that had been empty for a few years, turns out it was a restaurant with alcohol license before), and we regularly have drunk people speaking loudly/shouting outside in the evenings from Thursday - Saturday. We can obviously close the window (triple glazed), but it's nice to have a breeze coming in.

> I live in an apartment with masonry

I live in an earthquake zone. Masonry construction is illegal on almost the entire US West Coast.

That seems like a problem of poorly constructed/soundproofed apartments than anything.

I'm not sure cities are the place to find peace and quiet.

I came to the same conclusion, but urbanists get very angry when I tell them this.

... and then they rage-downvote me, apparently.