The most common criticism I hear against cities is that they are loud. Cities aren't loud; cars are loud.
You experienced a bad compromise of having high density of a city and the high car ownership of suburbia. Like a "stroad," a road that is trying to be a street, it doesn't work.
Try to spend a week in a place with walkable density and no cars: Amsterdam, Oslo, or closer to US, Disney Land.
Practically none of those sources of noise pollution apply to modern urban areas. How many blacksmiths do you have working on your street today?
We've driven out nature, we don't have livestock or any animals other than rats and a few birds, we don't transport cargo on carts with wood & metal wheels, we don't live in industrial areas that produce noise pollution, we have laws governing loud music and such.
Above all, we have high quality windows now which block out almost everything but the loudest noises, usually those produced by cars.
I stayed in a hotel in a city recently. I wish the cars were the loudest thing. There was an ice-skating rink blasting music until after midnight and then a jackhammer at 6am. Needless to say, I didn't sleep well.
I get that, there are always going to be outliers, but "cars" are the right answer to the noise pollution question for the vast majority of the population. Construction is a valid one too, but that one is unavoidable except for all the car infrastructure.
Maybe for you but I’ve stayed in plenty of extremely urban areas in the US and abroad. The traffic noise was at worst a light background noise, white noise if you will.
The noises that bothered me were the live music from downstairs blasting into my room after midnight, people making a ruckus in the halls outside my room, people yelling on the street, loud emergency services vehicles.
Just like in an airplane it isn’t the sound of the aircraft that is annoying to me but the guy two rows in front talking to his bros.
The nice thing is I live in the suburbs and don’t hear any of the above and I also don’t hear traffic noise. The worst I hear is an occasional landscaping crew or circular saw but those don’t happen at 1 am.
I used to travel to SF regularly, including after the removal of cars from market street. Additionally, i stayed on market street because of the ease of access to the offices i needed to go to. if cars are in fact the problem, how come market street is still loud enough today, with no cars, at 2 AM, to bleed enough sound through a double pane window with dense curtains?
cars are not the problem. anybody with any experience in life knows the more stuff and people you cram in a small area, the more noise (an heat for all you climate changers)
Thing is, we can build better buildings that are more resistant to noise pollution, regardless of the source. If I can't hear my neighbors, then I can totally ignore them. Which makes it livable.
The problem with this is that it reinforces the notion that you "live" inside and only go outside when you need to get somewhere. How are you ever going to enjoy a nice street-side cup of coffee in peace? Or take a walk around your neighborhood? Or engage in any outdoor social activity?
If you allow the outside to be unpleasant, then people are increasingly going to stay inside which has negative societal ramifications.
I think we can agree that not being woken up by your neighbors drunkenly blasting music at 3am is preferable to the alternative. But people should be able to live their lives and if they want to celebrate a big win at work or whatever, as long as it doesn't bother me, who am I to say they shouldn't at 3am on a Wednesday? Yes the outside needs to be nice as well, but we have to live together, and the best way is for me to be unable to hear them.
The outside needs to be nice, but making inside unpleasant doesn't accomplish that.
You experienced a bad compromise of having high density of a city and the high car ownership of suburbia. Like a "stroad," a road that is trying to be a street, it doesn't work.
Try to spend a week in a place with walkable density and no cars: Amsterdam, Oslo, or closer to US, Disney Land.