Table of Contents

 

PROLOGUE TO DECIBELS

Workers with scarred eardrums were preparing to launch an open-cut subway extension project for the New York City Transit Authority. As luck would have it, the Slattery Construction Company had chosen the southwest corner of Fifty-fifth Street and Sixth Avenue, just opposite the windows of my apartment, to assemble the five compressors.

PART I

INTRODUCTION TO NOISE

 

Chapter 1

Today And Tomorrow

The noise victim is not alone in his suffering. And he has every reason for feeling disturbed. He is surrounded by an excess of noisemakers, motor-driven machines and devices that are not designed for quiet operation.

 

Chapter 2

The Vocabulary of Noise

It is almost as if the noisy machine is protected by a wall of measuring systems and units. Trying to define noise and quantify human response has become a substitute for seeking to achieve a less noise-stressed civilization. Quality is dictated by statistics and formulae, not by intuition and common sense.

PART II

THE PRICE OF NOISE

 

Chapter 3

The Price In Health

If ours were a civilized society, it would not be necessary to work so hard to make a case for noise as a health problem. But when courts rule that we must accept annoyance and even damage from noise as the price of civilization, a public health rationale for noise abatement becomes a must.

 

Chapter 4

The Price In Dollars

As we continue probing the new concept of environmental quality we will discover that the total cost of excessive noise is something society cannot afford.

 

Chapter 5

The Price In Environmental Quality

Democracy gives man the right to vote, but not the right to sleep; the right to dissent, but not the right to minimize the noises of social utility; the right to go to school, but not the right to be able to hear the teacher.

PART III

ACOUSTIC ANARCHY

 

Chapter 6

No Legal Recourse

When it comes to noise assault the city dweller is disenfranchised. Judges consistently have ruled that when one agrees to live in a city he agrees to accept any and all noise that goes with city living.

 

Chapter 7

The Politics Of Noise

The problem of noise is seen as a balancing of business interests against the interests of a suffering public, except that business is identified with "the public," and ordinary people, the victims, are left out in the noisy cold.

PART IV

DESIGN FOR QUIET

 

Chapter 8

Potential For Control

People are all too frequently unaware of how their noisemaking activities impinge on their neighbors. Requests for quiet are interpreted as personal attacks, and raise hackles.

 

Chapter 9

Promises, Promises

The majority still fails to understand the need to lessen the noise assault, and among the enlightened who acknowledge "noise pollution" one finds a tendency to relegate its solution to the bottom of the heap of pressing problems.

 

Chapter 10

It's Up To All Of Us

Once government assigns a top priority to noise abatement it must establish a noise abatement function with the responsibility and the authority to oversee all government planning and actions that modify the noise environment. Fearful of the powers of a central agency, some would prefer to keep noise abatement as a fragmented operation of government.

 

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cover

Description

About The Author

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Copyright