'Police now move people on at 23:00. Rubbish lorries, which had previously cleared up when the partygoers left in the early hours, have been rescheduled for the morning, and steps that provided seating for gatherers have now been filled with plant boxes'
OK fine about rescheduling the garbage trucks, but is this really a success? A vibrant public space has been neutered by more intrusive policing and architectural changes that encourage people to stay away? I'm somewhat sympathetic to the people in these apartments, but if this has been going on for 20 years (and why 20? why not 200?) then property values should already have adjusted. If you're living here, it's because you made the calculation about the noise and decided to rent or buy anyway, or else you didn't, and why is that the City of Barcelona's problem?
> If you're living here, it's because you made the calculation about the noise and decided to rent or buy anyway
These plazas are commonly located in the old town, so a lot of inhabitants might have inherited the properties. Also, it's sometimes hard to judge how loud an area is really going to be before signing the contract - especially the night-life.
I recently rented a new apartment in a crowded street and while it was certainly a mistake to move here, I didn't expect it to be _that_ loud since when we were there for the apartment viewings there were also a lot of other interested parties and it was distracting from the street noise.
I really wish there would be a project to distribute those noise-tracking devices and make the realtime data available to the public. It would definitely influence buying/renting decisions and help for city planning as I think this serious problem is only tackled on the surface and it brings down quality of living.
So keeping the noise down late at night now constitutes neutering a vibrant public space? Living in a city may require tolerating noise and crowds but it also requires being mindful of how your activities affect others.
The cities must apply the law. The law says you cannot make so much noise when people tries to rest. That's all. There are plenty of hours in the day to make noise without disturbing others and breaking laws.
Why has this abuse being running for 20 years? That's a good question. But if someone threw garbage on your property, your answer won't be that "property values should already have adjusted". You just call the police, don't you?
If you're living here, it's because you made the calculation about the noise and decided to rent or buy anyway, or else you didn't, and why is that the City of Barcelona's problem?
I lived in Barcelona for 5 years, and for the first 18 months my wife and I lived right by the Santa Maria del Mar, a church in a square that is one of the main tourist areas in Barcelona. Our neighbours in the building included an old couple (80's, probably) who had lived there forever, and a 92 year old lady who was born in the building. Our landlords had inherited the place from their parents, who had been there forever too. Barcelona is that sort of place, it has changed incredibly quickly - before the olympics in '92, apparently it was unsafe to walk around that area during the day, but in the last decade or so it's become super hip.
We didn't complain, we just moved, but I would absolutely support reducing the nightlife around that area - the noise was insane. And it was pretty much all caused by tourists, not locals, and Barcelona is on a big drive to prioritise the locals in general. Reducing the nightlife, or even just keeping the noise at night to reasonable levels, wouldn't make the space any less vibrant during the day or even at night at reasonable hours, and would give a lot of relief to residents.
I live on a noisy New York street. Replacing seating with potted plants appears, to me as well, a sloppy response to the problem. (Re-scheduling trash collection, on the other hand, was brilliant.)
Modern technology allows for acoustically isolating virtually any kind of housing. (Provided the windows are shut.) Acoustic retrofitting is expensive, but so is losing the tax revenue from a vibrant public space. A better solution would have involved reducing noise levels inside residents’ homes without smothering the plaza.
(Reminds me of a poster I saw at a club, once. Paraphrasing, “Al sees apartment. Al sees club. Al rents apartment. Al spends all his free time making noise complaints. Don’t be Al.”)
100% agree with you. Often the reason people move in to these areas is the lively bustling local culture. Then the complaints come which sanitise the area, killing its spirit.
This has been happening a lot in London as the tide of gentrification washes in and sucks the life out of the local culture.
This isn't a vibrant public space, it's just a space full of noisy foreign tourists who are making a racket while the locals are trying to sleep, because they have to go to work the next day.
Noise is a permanent issue of our current times. Noise at day in huge open space like offices ("Just use headphones"), noise by night in urban areas ("Just use ear plugs"). Meanwhile research has shown, that you can't adjust or get used to noise - you might think otherwise but your ear and brain is doing the heavy lifting for you.
"- We do not get used to noise, but our ears "filter out" unpleasant sounds and cope as well as they can with the daily exposure to intensive noise.
- People are unaware of the damage caused by exposure to high levels of noise due to a lack of information.
- The damage affects not only our hearing ability. It may also appear in the form of insomnia, tiredness, lack of concentration, lack of attention at work, lack of efficiency, and even hypertension, heart problems and digestive disorders."
Kinda sad but the gist is that this went on for years and years and it wasn't until the people got support that they could prove there was an issue with noise.
Nobody in authority listerned or even checked until then.
It'd been going on so long, I would argue that there is an element of "coming to the nuisance" [1] going on. That is, the situation is like people who move next to a farm in order to "get back to nature." Hey! Turn out it sucks to live next to a farm! Lets shut the farm down!
I live in Barcelona. It is a _noisy_ city. It is just normal for young locals to sit outside in plaças or on wide streets on weekend evenings, socialising, having a drink, talking loudly, and even sometimes singing. By evenings I mean the Spanish definition of evenings, which last until way after midnight.
As a foreigner living here, I try to accept the noise as part of the culture, even though the noise annoys me. So it is great to read of locals actively campaigning to reduce noise levels.
On Friday I was in the very plaça (Plaça del Sol) mentioned in the article with a friend, and it was crowded and loud. All the tables were full, people were sitting on the steps, and indeed all over the plaça. My friend said, "it must be bad for the residents". It is good to know at least one plaça in Barcelona is now moving the crowds on after 11:30pm.
I'm Canadian but living in Barcelona, in El Born district. I had no idea drunk Brits on vacation could make so much noise at nights. I live above a cafe/bar frequented by locals, and I have no issue with their late night (late night for this Canadian anyhow, around 10-midnight) enjoyment of tapas, wine and friends. Sure the Spaniards aren't exactly known for being quiet people, but it's not unreasonable levels of noise and they're quite quite after midnight. Its the bloody tourists that fly down on a 30 quid Ryanair flight with their lads for a weekend of fun in Barcelona and scream bloody marry at 3 am that get under my skin.
I've been idly wondering whether there is a comprehensive "quiet community" standard like there is for a "dark sky community"?
From my perspective the main noise pollution problem is fast moving cars, which have obvious fixes. People loudly hanging out in plazas seem like a more difficult problem, and not even something I'm all that comfortable with characterizing as a problem. But maybe turning down lighting could be part of the solution? Or are places people hang out loudly at already not lighted?
I'm from Spain and all city streets and plazas have at least some lighting at night (enough that one can comfortably walk through the city at any hour of the night) and even the least lit areas are popular for people to hang out in. I do not think it would be feasible, desirable or safe to reduce lighting to the point where it would be uncomfortable to be hanging out at night.
I might even predict the opposite effect: drinking on the street, although popular, is illegal in Spanish cities. Darker plazas would make it easier to hide drinking from the police, and could attract even more people.
As urban soundscapes go, passenger cars are basically silent. Buses, trucks, trains, and motorcycles all make drastically more noise. Especially when the buses are operating their airbrakes and audible announcements, trains are blowing their horns as they crawl away from stations, trucks are accelerating and decelerating, etc. In other words, I couldn’t disagree more. It’s the slowest-moving everything-except-cars that make an unbearable racket. Maybe this is different in places with more prevalent diesel cars?
steps that provided seating for gatherers have now been filled with plant boxes
So, the same policy of hostile architecture that gets used to try to be unwelcoming of homeless people can be applied to other demographics and other social problems. Color me not thrilled with this approach.
I've just never had the kind of life that involved lots of alcohol and loud parties. So my admittedly biased tendency is to feel there is no tremendous value in fostering such things. But as other people have noted, this doesn't just impede loud carousers. It also prevents other kinds of just hanging out with people.
The article notes that the nearby commercial development basically sold pizza and beer and suggested this was influenced by the nighttime activities here. It seems to me that trying to get more of a commercial mix in the area could help or otherwise try to foster evening activities other than drinking, hanging in the plaza for free and being loud.
There was one charity that created a midnight basketball program to combat the problem of inner city youth having nothing to do but be troublemakers. It's not like you need to reinvent the wheel here, so to speak. There are examples out there for how to resolve similar kinds of problems in a win/win fashion that gives the offending parties something better to do instead of merely vilifying them.
We hear the voice of those who live there, but not of those who visit. Both are likely to be citizens, it seems one-sided to give in to the demands of one group, and ignore the other. (Or perhaps both were listened to, but the article gave no indication of that.)
In a society, peoples rights are a lot of times in conflict. In this case, I imagine that the right of the neigbours to be able to rest at night superseedes the right of the visitors to have fun by doing "botellón" (dinking on the street) at night in a residential area.
In any case, this is not special at all. Every European city has regulations about pollution, including noise pollution.
I misread the title somewhat and now got a «bright» idea: Why not put noise-canceling loudspeakers on plazas? No idea whether this really would work, but I think we should explore a technical solution. Because people need a place to let off steam. A possible double win?
I live in a high-rise next to a motorway in London and at 3am I can measure the noise as 60-70db using a mobile phone noise meter (inaccurate but indicative).
I investigated the feasibility of using my stereo speakers as noise-cancelling for the room... mics on the window sills and the speakers to reduce the noise in the room. I figured it would work well enough to remove the constant background hum of the road. I was wrong. It doesn't really work, and it is just noise upon noise.
The best I've managed to do is hang materials inside of the windows (quilts, sheets) and have been able to knock off just under 10db of noise in the best case (when it's just the drone of vehicle volume rather than specific engines or sirens).
The downside is that my high-rise is a high fire-risk tower block and I'm trading one life affecting issue (noise pollution) for another (fire risk) as now I have flammable materials inside my windows. Hard to know which affects sleep more, certainly the noise is the most real and present issue.
Hah, my idea was "ok, so the sensors will shush people? Like play some audio? That seems a bit odd but maybe it could work?"
Come think of it, this is not the first time I've gone through the whole evaluating idea-thought process and even sometimes reaching "I can't believe nobody thought of this before!" before realizing that I read something into a title that wasn't there.
As a native of Barcelona (but living currently abroad), I would love if the economy of the city become much less reliant on tourism, and more in culture, science and technology. Whatever erodes the touristic attractive of the city for party-goers looks good to me.
I feel like they should have maybe subsidized soundproofing in the nearby buildings rather than ruin the nice outdoor space enjoyed by so many party goers.
Kudos to the residents - but since this article is not just about BCN:
> People may not want everything monitored and who decides and shapes this agenda is a big question for future urban democracy.
That is actually my main problem with those fab labs: As collecting data becomes a means of power, the fabs are often an attempt to grab that power. I.e. the people running them are almost always heavily politically aligned towards one extreme of the spectrum and thus the labs themselves are ideological echo chambers (at least in my country).
No wonder it produces agendas like these:
> "We are trying to build a new productivity model for society, creating a new sustainable economy in cities where people can prototype and test ideas,"
Like this (an implied technical ability of the masses) is ever going to happen. Especially if the ones advocating it, are either shunning people outside their belief-system or "promoting" the ability with projects and agendas, no one outside their belief-system is even remotely interested in.
Consider affluent neighbourhood residents going into these labs to print their own noise detectors because of their annoyance with the asylum-seeker-home next door. Not gonna happen.
And since Detroit was mentioned: What if those youngsters in plaça del sol where the ones equipped with sensors?
[+] [-] CamTin|7 years ago|reply
OK fine about rescheduling the garbage trucks, but is this really a success? A vibrant public space has been neutered by more intrusive policing and architectural changes that encourage people to stay away? I'm somewhat sympathetic to the people in these apartments, but if this has been going on for 20 years (and why 20? why not 200?) then property values should already have adjusted. If you're living here, it's because you made the calculation about the noise and decided to rent or buy anyway, or else you didn't, and why is that the City of Barcelona's problem?
[+] [-] omn1|7 years ago|reply
These plazas are commonly located in the old town, so a lot of inhabitants might have inherited the properties. Also, it's sometimes hard to judge how loud an area is really going to be before signing the contract - especially the night-life.
I recently rented a new apartment in a crowded street and while it was certainly a mistake to move here, I didn't expect it to be _that_ loud since when we were there for the apartment viewings there were also a lot of other interested parties and it was distracting from the street noise.
I really wish there would be a project to distribute those noise-tracking devices and make the realtime data available to the public. It would definitely influence buying/renting decisions and help for city planning as I think this serious problem is only tackled on the surface and it brings down quality of living.
[+] [-] ghaff|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] narag|7 years ago|reply
Why has this abuse being running for 20 years? That's a good question. But if someone threw garbage on your property, your answer won't be that "property values should already have adjusted". You just call the police, don't you?
[+] [-] lemming|7 years ago|reply
I lived in Barcelona for 5 years, and for the first 18 months my wife and I lived right by the Santa Maria del Mar, a church in a square that is one of the main tourist areas in Barcelona. Our neighbours in the building included an old couple (80's, probably) who had lived there forever, and a 92 year old lady who was born in the building. Our landlords had inherited the place from their parents, who had been there forever too. Barcelona is that sort of place, it has changed incredibly quickly - before the olympics in '92, apparently it was unsafe to walk around that area during the day, but in the last decade or so it's become super hip.
We didn't complain, we just moved, but I would absolutely support reducing the nightlife around that area - the noise was insane. And it was pretty much all caused by tourists, not locals, and Barcelona is on a big drive to prioritise the locals in general. Reducing the nightlife, or even just keeping the noise at night to reasonable levels, wouldn't make the space any less vibrant during the day or even at night at reasonable hours, and would give a lot of relief to residents.
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|7 years ago|reply
Modern technology allows for acoustically isolating virtually any kind of housing. (Provided the windows are shut.) Acoustic retrofitting is expensive, but so is losing the tax revenue from a vibrant public space. A better solution would have involved reducing noise levels inside residents’ homes without smothering the plaza.
(Reminds me of a poster I saw at a club, once. Paraphrasing, “Al sees apartment. Al sees club. Al rents apartment. Al spends all his free time making noise complaints. Don’t be Al.”)
[+] [-] louthy|7 years ago|reply
This has been happening a lot in London as the tide of gentrification washes in and sucks the life out of the local culture.
A really sad state of affairs
[+] [-] atlantic|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chinathrow|7 years ago|reply
"- We do not get used to noise, but our ears "filter out" unpleasant sounds and cope as well as they can with the daily exposure to intensive noise.
- People are unaware of the damage caused by exposure to high levels of noise due to a lack of information.
- The damage affects not only our hearing ability. It may also appear in the form of insomnia, tiredness, lack of concentration, lack of attention at work, lack of efficiency, and even hypertension, heart problems and digestive disorders."
https://www.hear-it.org/we-get-used-to-noise-
[+] [-] accnumnplus1|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zenst|7 years ago|reply
Nobody in authority listerned or even checked until then.
[+] [-] bloaf|7 years ago|reply
[1] https://dictionary.thelaw.com/coming-to-the-nuisance/
[+] [-] baybal2|7 years ago|reply
My surprise upon my first days in the West was that no Western country seem to have them.
During my stay in Vancouver I got to know well the people who were reving their lambos on West Georgia in 3am.
[+] [-] stevoski|7 years ago|reply
As a foreigner living here, I try to accept the noise as part of the culture, even though the noise annoys me. So it is great to read of locals actively campaigning to reduce noise levels.
On Friday I was in the very plaça (Plaça del Sol) mentioned in the article with a friend, and it was crowded and loud. All the tables were full, people were sitting on the steps, and indeed all over the plaça. My friend said, "it must be bad for the residents". It is good to know at least one plaça in Barcelona is now moving the crowds on after 11:30pm.
[+] [-] richjdsmith|7 years ago|reply
I'm Canadian but living in Barcelona, in El Born district. I had no idea drunk Brits on vacation could make so much noise at nights. I live above a cafe/bar frequented by locals, and I have no issue with their late night (late night for this Canadian anyhow, around 10-midnight) enjoyment of tapas, wine and friends. Sure the Spaniards aren't exactly known for being quiet people, but it's not unreasonable levels of noise and they're quite quite after midnight. Its the bloody tourists that fly down on a 30 quid Ryanair flight with their lads for a weekend of fun in Barcelona and scream bloody marry at 3 am that get under my skin.
[+] [-] overkalix|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oriol16|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oever|7 years ago|reply
https://smartcitizen.me/
[+] [-] mlinksva|7 years ago|reply
From my perspective the main noise pollution problem is fast moving cars, which have obvious fixes. People loudly hanging out in plazas seem like a more difficult problem, and not even something I'm all that comfortable with characterizing as a problem. But maybe turning down lighting could be part of the solution? Or are places people hang out loudly at already not lighted?
[+] [-] degrews|7 years ago|reply
I might even predict the opposite effect: drinking on the street, although popular, is illegal in Spanish cities. Darker plazas would make it easier to hide drinking from the police, and could attract even more people.
[+] [-] closeparen|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DoreenMichele|7 years ago|reply
So, the same policy of hostile architecture that gets used to try to be unwelcoming of homeless people can be applied to other demographics and other social problems. Color me not thrilled with this approach.
I've just never had the kind of life that involved lots of alcohol and loud parties. So my admittedly biased tendency is to feel there is no tremendous value in fostering such things. But as other people have noted, this doesn't just impede loud carousers. It also prevents other kinds of just hanging out with people.
The article notes that the nearby commercial development basically sold pizza and beer and suggested this was influenced by the nighttime activities here. It seems to me that trying to get more of a commercial mix in the area could help or otherwise try to foster evening activities other than drinking, hanging in the plaza for free and being loud.
There was one charity that created a midnight basketball program to combat the problem of inner city youth having nothing to do but be troublemakers. It's not like you need to reinvent the wheel here, so to speak. There are examples out there for how to resolve similar kinds of problems in a win/win fashion that gives the offending parties something better to do instead of merely vilifying them.
[+] [-] bigcostooge|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] trevyn|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ComodoHacker|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chopin|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exabrial|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rhn_mk1|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 6t6t6t6|7 years ago|reply
In any case, this is not special at all. Every European city has regulations about pollution, including noise pollution.
[+] [-] msh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _nalply|7 years ago|reply
Edit: I googled and found this: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/87833/outdoor-ac... -- it seems that there are limits of physics which make such noise-canceling loudspeakers infeasible. It's a pity.
[+] [-] buro9|7 years ago|reply
I live in a high-rise next to a motorway in London and at 3am I can measure the noise as 60-70db using a mobile phone noise meter (inaccurate but indicative).
I investigated the feasibility of using my stereo speakers as noise-cancelling for the room... mics on the window sills and the speakers to reduce the noise in the room. I figured it would work well enough to remove the constant background hum of the road. I was wrong. It doesn't really work, and it is just noise upon noise.
The best I've managed to do is hang materials inside of the windows (quilts, sheets) and have been able to knock off just under 10db of noise in the best case (when it's just the drone of vehicle volume rather than specific engines or sirens).
The downside is that my high-rise is a high fire-risk tower block and I'm trading one life affecting issue (noise pollution) for another (fire risk) as now I have flammable materials inside my windows. Hard to know which affects sleep more, certainly the noise is the most real and present issue.
[+] [-] kristiandupont|7 years ago|reply
Come think of it, this is not the first time I've gone through the whole evaluating idea-thought process and even sometimes reaching "I can't believe nobody thought of this before!" before realizing that I read something into a title that wasn't there.
[+] [-] Giorgi|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] kgwgk|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] enriquto|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oriol16|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kapauldo|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jruz|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] binnesjohn|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] namlem|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] woodpanel|7 years ago|reply
> People may not want everything monitored and who decides and shapes this agenda is a big question for future urban democracy.
That is actually my main problem with those fab labs: As collecting data becomes a means of power, the fabs are often an attempt to grab that power. I.e. the people running them are almost always heavily politically aligned towards one extreme of the spectrum and thus the labs themselves are ideological echo chambers (at least in my country).
No wonder it produces agendas like these:
> "We are trying to build a new productivity model for society, creating a new sustainable economy in cities where people can prototype and test ideas,"
Like this (an implied technical ability of the masses) is ever going to happen. Especially if the ones advocating it, are either shunning people outside their belief-system or "promoting" the ability with projects and agendas, no one outside their belief-system is even remotely interested in.
Consider affluent neighbourhood residents going into these labs to print their own noise detectors because of their annoyance with the asylum-seeker-home next door. Not gonna happen.
And since Detroit was mentioned: What if those youngsters in plaça del sol where the ones equipped with sensors?