The Urban Soundscape: Analysing the Spatiotemporal Distribution of Acoustic Events and its Influence on the Racial/Ethnic Composition of New York City Neighbourhoods

Abstract

Past research has shown that the effects of prolonged exposure to urban acoustic noise are both detrimental to mind and body. In recent years, studies have also indicated that the socially disadvantaged are more susceptible to environmental hazards such as noise pollution. This paper aims to fill a gap in literature through the evaluation of urban soundscapes by analysing the spatiotemporal patterns of acoustic events within selected New York City (NYC) neighbourhoods and comparing the datum to the socio-economic data of the urban environments. In this paper, the author aims to address this question, ‘Does racial/ethnic composition of each neighbourhood influence how acoustic events are distributed, and in what way does this relate to the socio-economic status of each location?’ This study focuses on seven neighbourhoods within the New York City metropolitan area, each location representing one of the seven levels of noise metadata found on NYC’s 311 noise map. The ambient soundscape of each location was recorded for 30 minutes over four different time intervals across three days, comprising in a total of 45 hours of raw data. Acoustic events were extracted and annotated for saliency and classed according to soundscape components, which were then compared against the racial/ethnic demography of NYC. The findings in this study partially aligned with past research in which communities of lower socio-economic status with higher proportions of non-Caucasian communities were susceptible to higher levels of noise exposure. Additionally, this study also aligned with the hypothesis that high numbers of acoustic events negatively correlate to the socio-economic composition of neighbourhoods.