I'm in suburbia now, and the noise is nearly constant, year-round. I grew up on a farm, have lived in the hearts of major cities, the middle of an isolated mesa -- basically covered the spectrum of sound environments.

Nowhere has the noise gotten to me like in suburbia. Two words: leaf blowers.

The other day I was awakened by the... most... annoying... sound... in the universe: a leaf blower outside my window.

Worse! They blew everything directly into the bicycle parking row! Years' worth of dirt on my bike in one minute. Debris and filth in all the works. Earthworms. Had to completely detail the whole bike.

Meanwhile, leaves are some of the best compost available. Why do we blow them noisomely to rot on the "unused" areas of the pavement (i.e., bike parking, bike lanes)?

I've often said it: The twin banes of the suburban soundscape are barking dogs and gas-powered gardening implements.

I live in an old inner-ring streetcar suburb (sans streetcar, sadly) that's walking distance (about 2 km) from the downtown core. It's not as bad as some of the newer subdivisions I've been to, but it certainly experiences a share of leaf blowers, gas lawn mowers, gas snow blowers, SUVs and pickup trucks roaring down the street (they're much louder than compact cars), and the distant rumble of traffic on a nearby arterial. We had a backyard dinner party this past summer that was interrupted for an hour by a freaking wood chipper in a yard behind us.

My experience with suburbia was that there was always yard equipment going, plus dogs and teenagers. These loud, punctuated sounds always bothered me much more than the regular, low din of a city. Moreover, most of the noise in cities in from automobiles, which are mainly a problem inflicted upon us by suburban development.

... and there are neighborhoods in the centers of cities, typically residential with little car traffic, that are very quiet.

Tokyo has a lot of these. It doesn't have a single "downtown", but rather a large number of busy centers, usually around railroad stations, and in many parts of central Tokyo, the "infill" between these is residential single-family housing or small apartment buildings. In many of those areas, streets are very narrow and windy, there's very little automobile traffic (people walk or bicycle), and it's often very quiet, to the point where one can sometimes hear people talking inside houses while walking down the street...

The biggest problem with Tokyo is a lack of laws against public disturbance in terms of noise people are allowed to produce.

All is fine and dandy until one of those stupid delivery trucks shows up near my building at 6am blaring "Hidari e magarimasu, gochuui kudasai. Hidari e magarimasu, gochuui kudasai. Hidari e magarimasu, gochuui kudasai". For people unfamiliar with Japan, various trucks here are not only equipped with visual (light based) turn signals, but audio based ones as well. This means that whenever they are taking a turn, they are blaring from their speakers "Turning left, please be careful. Turning left, please be careful" ad nauseam.

Seriously, is that really necessary? Not to mention trucks with loudspeakers playing loud music promoting new bands and what not. I find Tokyo to be anything but a quiet city.

To make things worse, sound proofing is so terrible in Japanese houses and buildings (construction standards are really poor here compared to the ones we have in the west), that despite living on the 6th floor I can often make out contents of the conversations of loud drunk groups returning from izakayas at 1am.

But most of suburbia isn't quiet. Especially the suburbia that is Silicon Valley. You have go full-on rural before you're somewhat guaranteed to not be disturbed by man-made noises.

One perk of living in my mothers basement right now, rural noise levels. Sleeping is so much easier than it was at college!

I grew on on the country side. On an island. In the middle of the Baltic sea. In the winter, it would get so dark that I couldn't see my hand before my eyes, and couldn't hear a single sound. Actually this had some strange effects on me, being sort of a sleep walker and all. I would often wake up in the middle of the night being confused, not knowing where I was. I had to feel my bed, find the floor, the walls, the furniture, until I finally come to my senses and realize where I was. Kind of like sensory deprivation. It never happens nowadays, when I live in a city, because it never gets completely dark. Not really on topic, but thought it might be interesting, maybe others have had the same experience. I think growing up this way made me more sensitive to sounds in general, a ticking clock can keep me awake for hours...

I grew up in similar conditions, and only now that you've mentioned it, I made a connection of awaking to not knowing where you are and confused to such sensory deprivation. I don't recall that happening ever in urban areas. Quite contrary, I'm now extremely light sleeper, and wake to full awareness almost instantly. Interesting.

Just as a curiosity, did the confused episodes last long? I'm sort of a light sleeper but I also have sleep walking/talking tendencies. When I wake up in a sensory-deprivated state, it can take what seems like 5-10 minutes before I'm back to normal. It's like waking up from that dream, but having nothing contradicting the dream you just had, so my mind sort of continues the dream line of reasoning until my logical abilities catch up. Very strange feeling.

I live in the suburbs and have had the exact same experience on the quiet car as the author. The suburbs aren't quiet either. They suffer the same problems the author points out throughout the piece. This isn't unique to the city at all. I think it's something that anyone can get behind (unless you're one of those annoying people on the quiet car in which case you might not get it).

I'm typing this right now from my apartment in Midtown Manhattan. I hear nothing except the humming of the two USB hard drives on my desk.

All in all, this is the same amount of noise I grew up hearing in a quiet suburban neighborhood.

What floor are you on?

It really depends where you are. I live in Montreal, in one of the most active neighborhoods, full of shops, pedestrians and nightlife.

But it's all concentrated on east-west streets (in my area). I live less than a block up from the main artery, and it's completely silent here. Ground floor apartment, window onto the street.