The neighborhood soundscape and the residents’ perceptions of its quality

Abstract

In autumn of 2001 a small socio-acoustic survey was undertaken in an affluent Oslo city area. A telephone survey provided data on neighborhood quality and environmental annoyances from 400 respondents after a response rate of 38%. The Nordic calculation method was employed to estimate 24h LAeq noise exposure values in front of the most exposed facade of each resident’s apartment, and for various neighborhood locations. The quality of the neighborhood soundscape of each dwelling (and respondent) was thereafter characterized by a simple indicator of the maximum of these exposure values within a radius of 75 meters. Ordinal logit models were used to model people’s noise annoyance when at home as a function of the noise level outside the most exposed facade and the modifying impact of the neighborhood soundscape. The analyses using data from the Oslo West city area thus replicate previous analyses undertaken in Oslo East and Drammen. However, the Oslo West questionnaire also included simple questions about the residents’ perceptions of their neighborhood soundscape, and their use of their neighborhood area. The inclusion of these questions made it possible to analyze the correspondence between the estimated neighborhood soundscape quality and people’s assessment of their noise neighborhood.