The Correlations Between Urban Configuration and Spatial Perception of Noise in New York City

The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School

SEEING NOISE: THE CORRELATIONS BETWEEN URBAN CONFIGURATION AND SPATIAL PERCEPTION OF NOISE IN NEW YORK CITY

A Thesis in Architecture by Sohail Sadroleslami

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Science

August 2020

The thesis of Sohail Sadroleslami was reviewed and approved by the following:

Thesis Adviser Daniel Willis Professor of Architecture

Loukas N. Kalisperis Professor of Architecture

Peter Aeschbacher Associate Professor of Architecture

Mehrdad Hadighi Professor of Architecture, Stuckeman Chair of Integrative Design Head of the Department of Architecture

Abstract

The research question of this study is how does the urban configuration correlate to people’s spatial perception of noise in cities? The methodology of this research includes the following four major steps: gathering information and data, visualizing data, constructing an experiment, and interpreting the results.

We perceive our surrounding environment by different means and senses, one of which is our auditory sense. In most parts of urban areas, especially in megalopolises, noise is conceived as an unpleasant element. This study focuses on two features of this problem that have not been extensively studied. First, it concentrates on the mental perception of noise rather than the acoustics of source noise. Second, it illustrates the co-relationships between spatial and material characteristics of the urban environment and the subjective perception of noise. This could lead to design modifications of urban environments that are perceptively peaceful.

I began by studying neighborhoods in New York City. Of particular interest to me were “outlier” neighborhoods that reported either many more noise complaints or many fewer than those of their surroundings. This distinction is based on the number of complaints from each neighborhood, gathered from data hub of NYC’s 3-1-1 call center. The relationship between the design elements of these outliers and their different perception of noise was then examined in some detail. Three elements were studied for the urban configuration. The shape and density of residential buildings, the heights of buildings, and the density of the tree canopies in the neighborhoods. Ultimately, I chose to focus on the presence and density of trees, and to ask how trees might contribute to the perception of a pleasant or acceptable sonic environment, beyond what would be expected from their objectively measured sound- blocking characteristics? Or, to state this another way, how do visual environment cues affect sound perception?

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Table of Contents

List of Figures………………………………………………….……………...………v

Acknowledgments ………………………………….……………………………… vii

Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………….1 Research question…………………………………………………………………2

Chapter 2. LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………….….….. 3 Urban Spaces and People…………………..……………………………………...3 Noise and Technology in Urban Spaces………………………….……………….6

Chapter 3. METHODOLGY……………………………………………………….17 NYC 311 Call Center …………………………………………………………... 17 Data Visualizing Calls …………………………………………………………...17 Mapping Perceptive Complaints ………………………………………………...18 Direct Survey ………………………………………………………….………...19

Chapter 4. OUTLIER NEIGBORHOODS ……………………………………… 21 Explanation of outliers…………………………………………….……………..21 The indication of factors of urban configuration……………………………….. 37 Comparison and Interpretation…………………………………………………. 60

Chapter 5. HUMAN PARTICIPATION SURVEY……………………………… 63 Survey process…………………………………………………………………...63

Chapter 6. FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATION……………………………… 68 Direct survey discussions………………..……………….……..………………..73 Survey findings ………………………………...………...….…………………..74 Survey limitations………………………………………………………………. 78 Future directions ..………………………………………………………………. 79 General findings ..………………………………………………………………. 81

Appendix A: Noise Hunter Website….…………………………………….…..…. 83

Appendix B: Questionnaire…………….………………………………….…..….. 97

Bibliography ……………………………………….…….………………………...106

List of Figures

Figure 1. A typical NYC neighborhood profile ……………………………………………...1

Figure 2. Perceptual maps of London and Barcelona ………………………………………...6

Figure 3. Georeferenced photos ……………………………………………………………...7

Figure 4. Raw data tables ……………………………………………………………………18

Figure 5. Color-coded overall map of NYC …………………………………………………22

Figure 6. Zoomed-in map of Manhattan-Queens ……………………………………………23

Figure 7. Zoomed-in map of NYC……………………………………………………………23

Figure 8. Zoomed-in map of NYC………..……………………………………….…………24

Figure 9. Central Park……………………………….………...…………….………….……26

Figure 10. Rikers Island…….…………………………………….………….………………27

Figure 11. LaGuardia Airport…………………...... ……. ……..…...…………….…………28

Figure 12. JFK Airport ……………. ………...…………….…………………………..……29

Figure 13. Great Kills neighborhood ……………………………………..……………….…30

Figure 14. Crown Heights Neighborhood……….. …………………….…………………....31

Figure 15. Hylan Boulevard ………………………..………………………………………..32 v

Figure 16. New Brighton-St. George ……………………..………………………………….33

Figure 17. Green areas map of the Crown Heights ………………………………………….55

Figure 18. Brownsville neighborhood……………. ………...…………….…………………56

Figure 19. Green coverage map of the NYC………………………………………………….57

Figure 20. Buildings typology map of the Stapleton-Rosebank ……………………………..59

Figure 21. Buildings heights map of the Stapleton-Rosebank ……………………………….60

Figure 22. Green areas map of the Stapleton-Rosebank ……………………………………..61

Figure 23. Grasmere neighborhood…………………………………………………………..62

Figure 24. Buildings typology map of the New Brighton–St. George ……………………….63

Figure 25. Green areas of the New Brighton-St. George ……………………………………..66

Figure 26. Green areas map of the New Brighton-St. George ………………………………..66

Figure 27. Buildings typology of the Windsor Terrace ………………………………………68

Figure 28. Prospect Park …………………………………………………………………….70

Figure 29. Green areas map of the Windsor Terrace …………………………………………71

Figure 30. Park Slope – Gowanus neighborhood …………………………………………….72

Figure 31. High outliers noise typology map ………………………………………………...78 vi

Acknowledgements

Hereby, I would like to acknowledge my gratitude for my family, whose unconditional love expressed in various ways, has been always paving my way forward as a north star for me. Also, I’m so grateful for having my invalubale committee members, in particular professor Daniel Willis. His creative ideas, friendly manner and flexible approach was the keystone for the success of this research. Last, I’m very thankful for professor Mehrdad Hadighi, the head of the architecure department. He has been always supportive and understanding in my acdemic path at Penn State University.

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Chapter 1. Introduction

Noise is present in every city, especially large metropolitan areas like New York City. In these large cities, noise complaints are a common occurrence for which people call 3-1-1. Noises in an urban environment can be from a variety of sources. Figure one is a drawing that depicts some of such sources in a typical New York City urban profile.

Figure 1. This hand drawing sketch, iluustrates how various sources of noise in a typical street section in NYC can be impacting the residents (Source: Author).

Throughout time and space, there may be unequal tolerance of noise and uneven responses to noise. Previous visualization studies have found ways to depict and allow users to manipulate, noise complaints in New York City. Several researchers have attempted to map noise, specifically in New York City. Hsieh et al. (2015) have researched the noise mapping in New York through the lenses of social media platforms such as Foursquare, Flicker, Twitter, and Gowalla in tandem with 3-1-1 noise complaints. The aim of these studies is to provide the user with a comprehensive map and understanding of what kind of noises are happening in different areas.

It should be noted, however, that this research is based on the fundamental distinction between sound and noise. A sound is a form of energy that is transmitted by pressure variations which the human ear can detect. When one plays a musical instrument, say a guitar, the vibrating chords set air particles into vibration and generate pressure waves in the air. A person nearby may then hear the sound of the guitar when the pressure waves are perceived by the ear. Sound can also travel through other media, such as water or steel. Apart from musical instruments, 1 sound can be produced by many other sources such as a man's vocal cords, a running engine, a vibrating loudspeaker diaphragm, an operating machine tool, and so on. Noise is defined as unwanted sound. If skillfully played, the sound of a violin is referred to as music, as something pleasing. Depending on other factors, including the intensity or loudness of a sound, an otherwise pleasant sound may be perceived as noise.

Noise perception is subjective. Factors such as the magnitude, characteristics, duration, and time of occurrence may affect one's subjective impression of the noise. In addition, there are some other immeasurable factors for a sound to be perceived as either pleasant or noise. The delightfulness of sound increases when sounds are novel, informative, responsive to a personal action, and culturally approved, as are birds and bells as studied by Michael Southworth (1970). Because the perception of noise is subjective, one sound can be acceptable (or even pleasant!) for one person, but annoying for someone else. This can be true while all other variables, such as the environmental context and characteristics of source sound are the same.

Research Question This study addresses the following questions: how does the urban configuration correlate to people’s spatial percpetion of noise? Specifically, this research focuses on the presence and density of trees in an urban environment. Do trees contribute to the perception of a pleasant or acceptable sonic environment, beyond what would be expected from their objectively measured sound-blocking characteristics? Or, to state this another way, how do visual cues in the environment affect sound perception?

I have designed an experiment to determine how human subjects (college students) rate various environments with respect to noise. Other authors have determined that aspects of trees unrelated to their measurable sound-blocking characteristics—including even their fragrance— can affect a person’s perception of environmental noise (Ba and Kang, 2019). My experiment focuses on the visual impact of various arrangements of trees in urban environments. The results of the experiment are then compared with data from the NYC 3-1-1 call center. The audience of this study is anyone who is involved in urban design within the context of public spaces.

Chapter 2. Literature Review

To better understand the significance and relevant precedents of the impacts of urban elements on spatial perception of noise, the literature review chapter is organized in three major parts: A) Urban spaces and people B) Noise and technology in urban spaces C) Spatial visual cues and auditory perception

A) Urban spaces and people Many scholars have studied the relationships between urban elements and how people’s lives are affected. One of the earliest and most important works on this matter is The Image of The City by Kevin Lynch (1960). How does the form of a city become meaningful in the eyes of its dwellers? What are the ways by which urban planning can make a city more memorable and readable for those living in it? The term “Imageability” is one of Lynch’s study byproducts that postulates a type of a guideline to better set the relationship between an urban environment and people. Lynch’s research also focused on the cities of Los Angeles, Boston, and Jersey City.

Lynch describes five elements to be considered for an ideal city. They are paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks. One of the main contributions of the “Image of the city” is that it establishes a categorized analysis of how urban space can better communicate with its dwellers. This is what it connects it to this thesis that investigates the impacts of the urban environment on people. The book, however, addresses the formal relationships in between a city and the people but does not cover the notions revolving around the concept of how cities can provide their residents with perceptively more suitable spaces. In other words, Lynch’s study is primarily a formal analysis. So, there is a need to go beyond merely formal impacts of the urban environments. Thus, the Hunting Noise research deals with the aspects of the environment that engage senses other than the vision that receives the form.

The socio-political implications of the spatial environment have been examined globally under various political and historical circumstances. “Social and Spatial Implications of Housing 3

Reform in China”, an article by Ya-Ping Wang and Alan Murie (2003) delves into how the urban policies of early communism in China has brought social consequences in contrast to the traditional Chinese culture. This study is mainly different from the previous two studies on two facets. First, it looks at different geography, instead of American cities it concentrates on Chinese cities, bringing the cultural dimension of the space-people dialectic to this conversation. Second, it underscores the dynamics of politics at interplay with the way space is organized either for or towards people. The study is related to this thesis, as it embraces the cultural nuances in the interaction between space and people. The Hunting noise is also built on the subjective perception of noise, in which cultural differences play an important role. Simply put, in different cultures, various sounds are perceived differently in terms of being pleasant or unpleasant within a given environment.

Moreover, noise exposure beyond certain thresholds are considered as health risks (Passchier- Vermeer and Passchier, 2000). There are long-term effects related to noise exposure such as hearing impairments, hypertension and changes in sleep patterns. More recently, Babisch (2006) relates effects the of traffic noise that disrupts sleep patterns to increased blood pressure. Noise also decreases productivity (Berglund and Lindvall 1995), which has implications not only for citizens in general, but specifically for places where people need to complete tasks, such as businesses and schools.

Another important aspect of people’s interaction with spaces in the urban environment lies in increasing demands in the public health domain. Studies suggest that urban forms play a pivotal role in an urban environment to be conducive to walkability and bicycling activities. Frank et al. (2001) have shown that overall life satisfaction of urban dwellers enhances when urban planners reconsider their design for forms that encourage more walking and bicycling. General health quality is strongly linked with moderate hours of such exercises (Frank et al. 2001).

The aforementioned study also indicates how the built environment can be either positively or negatively affects societies. That study (Frannk et al. 2001) however, does not address how psychological dimensions and human senses in an urban environment, influence people’s perception of their surroundings. The main advantage of that study, however, is backing its agenda by other studies that show based on concrete evidence that how the form of the urban 4 environment affects people’s well-being. Similar to Frank et al. the outputs of this thesis is useful for urban planners in terms of reforming urban design for the benefit of people. Another relevant and seminal literature is Wiliam Whyte’s study, Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1980). This study was funded by the New York City Planning Commission. His team used simple recording tools at that time, such as camera, clock, plan diagrams, and taking notes. They focused on several major American cities, most importantly NYC. The study categorizes various factors that contribute to the appropriate function of public space. Some of those factors are seating spaces, sun, and light, access and view, effective capacity, foods, and trees.

The outcomes of this study most relevant to my thesis can be summarized in the following points. The very first aspect that was quite striking for the researchers was the wide range of activities people were engaged in. One can just stand alone, stare, talk to each another, read, play music, perform a show, and eat and so on. Another finding is that increasing the number of chairs does not necessarily result in the increase of people in an urban space. Moreover, the places that have fixed chairs are less preferable as opposed to those that have moveable chairs. A good working urban space is the one that has a strong and clear connection to the street as the mainstream of people’s circulation. People have an instinct for knowing the right capacity in a certain space. People sit where there are places to sit! And this is one of the main captivating traits in a space. The sitting spaces shouldn’t be wet or too high. As it could be expected, having and basking in the sun is something that many people care about. In the case of Seagram’s, most people start to come at around 12 pm when there is a lot of sun coverage. Between 12 and 2 pm is the maximum of people’s gathering. Plus the location of people is in a precise relationship with the angel of the sun which proves the researcher’s earlier hypothesis about the role of the sun. Trees provide people with a comfort zone

In Whyte’s examination of Paley Park and Greenacre, he noted that a higher density of people can be found where there are more trees. These parks are among the densest cases, yet they’re among the quietest ones too. This is partially due to the presence of trees. Plant beds are also welcoming to people for sitting. They should be hospitable and their height must be low enough to accommodate people. This aspect of Whyte’s study is of particular significance to this thesis. In the final chapter the impact of trees on people’s perception of urban spaces is discussed in light of how even just visual perception of trees can impact people’s perception of urban noise. 5

Noise as an auditory factor has an important bearing on how people engage with space or with one another, whether an urban space fails or succeeds in attracting people.

B) Noise and technology in urban spaces Experimental work has been done to tease out perceptions of sounds. The sound is perceived as both pleasant and unpleasant environmental stimulus. Aiello et al. (2016) examine both noises and pleasant sounds in London and Barcelona by combining an urban sound dictionary with tagged georeferenced pictures in these cities. For examples, in figure 2, perceptual maps of London and Barcelona can be seen. They show how four types of sound, categorized by Aiello et al. (2016) are spread across the urban environment. Figure 3, illustrates some examples of tagged photos, used in the method of this study.

Figure 2: Perceptual maps of London (a) and Barcelona (b). They show the frequency of four types of urban sounds: chaotic, calm, monotonous, and vibrant (Source: Aiello et al.). 6

Figure 3: Some of the georeferenced photos, tagged with relevant terms such as screaming and traffic (Source: Aiello et al.).

An important contribution of this article is that it associates points of interest in cities with emotional perception. Another major strength of this study is that it synthesizes two different means of inquiry. Mixing sound with visuals is what this thesis is about. But in “Chatty maps: constructing sound maps of urban areas from social media data” this has happened in an abstract and disharmonized way (Aiello et al. 2016). It is abstract because it is limited to some generic terms such as calm or vibrant to describe the features of the soundscapes of those two cities.

The significance of this research within the context of my study is providing a precedent for understanding sound in urban context, using a multi-faceted approach. They have included emotional reactions of people to sound which underscores the psychological features and aspects of sound. Aiello et al. (2016), however; do not focus on noise complaints. Also, it should be noted that their primary does not involve a survey or a questionnaire. Bur rather they have utilized the information that comes from the pictures people have taken in urban spaces and have associated them with pleasant or unpleasant sounds.

Additionally, studies conducted by Loomis et al. (2001) illustrate how humans spatially perceive locations. Here the premise is that auditory and vocal triggers can orient people to target locations. Taking this observation and inverting it can help to understand how humans orient themselves in space, perceiving the location of a sound source. This is very important for the study of this thesis as it shows that human perception can certainly assign the environmental sound to certain locations. In Hunting Noise it is stated that one of the 7 characteristics of spatial perception of sound is that people in their mind find the location of the source noise from various spots that in many cases does not match the real location of the source noise. Subjective perception of noise in terms of its intensity, location or nature is different from features of the real source noise. This is indeed what has been overlooked in the Loomis et al. research.

Blesser and Salter (2009) shed a comprehensive light on the subject of spatial perception of sound by integrating concepts from varied disciplines such as linguistics, anthropology, cognitive psychology, and architecture. It allows one to see how culture shapes aural architecture. In their study “Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? Experiencing Aural Architecture” some of our daily life aural perception of space is mentioned. Comprehension of the emptiness of a dark room happens as we navigate through space without furniture. Conversations among the two get influenced by environmental sound and so on and so forth. The main edge this study has over Loomis et al. and Aiello et al. is that it takes into account perspectives from various fields. It also underlines the significance of culture in the relationship between people and the environmental stimuli of noise, similar to Wang et al. and Staub in which they pay attention to the role of culture in how people are influenced. What is not taken into consideration in this study is the lack of data-driven evidence for their analysis. This is addressed in this thesis by having real data from people perceptive reaction to the sound in their living environment over the course of the year 2016.

Another important thread of scholarly work in this area is noise monitoring. Researchers have addressed the problem of collecting the fine-grained spatial extent of noise by involving citizens in noise data collection efforts. In their study “Ear-phone: an end-to-end participatory urban noise mapping system,” Rana, Chou, Kanhere, Bulusu, and Hu (2010) developed an end- to-end (from collection to analysis), noise sensing to mapping application called Ear-Phone. This indeed responds to the missing dimension of Blesser and Salter’s research that they bring in people to reflect on their research question. The main advantage of the research is that it increases the individual awareness of citizens about the noise pollution around them. But what it does not offer is an overall and comprehensive image of an entire city. In the Hunting Noise thesis, several maps of the entire NYC have been created. This leads to an assessment of how the perception of noise correlates to design characteristics of the environment. In the study of 8

Rana et al. the relationship between architecture and noise perception is not among the outputs of the research.

Similar work was done by Schweizer et al. (2011) where collaborative sensing was used to develop real-time mapping. The final output is an application that enables users to generate immediate noise data graphs and maps. As compared to Rana et al. this article “NoiseMap— real-time participatory noise maps” is closer to the agenda of Hunting Noise research, at it translates information to meaningful maps and graphs. But like the study of Rana et al. it does not create a comprehensive understanding of an entire city in terms of how noise is spread. Likewise, D’Hondt, Stevens, and Jacobs (2013) developed NoiseTube to demonstrate the effectiveness of participatory mapping as an alternative and/or complementary approach to traditional simulation-based methods. Such participatory techniques enable a higher granularity and real-time monitoring of noise. This research “Participatory noise mapping works! An evaluation of participatory sensing as an alternative to standard techniques for environmental monitoring” is advantageous to previous one (Schweitzer et al.) in terms of increasing the granularity of mapping noise, that leads to a more clear understanding of noise visually. Yet similar to Schweitzer et al. and Rana et al. it does not result in having a map of an entire urban environment. Another aspect that Hunting Noise is different from these studies is that it represents people’s own sensational reaction to noise. In these aforementioned studies, the information is based on what each person carries around as an application. That application works just like a traditional decibel meter. Therefore we don’t get an understanding of the subjective perception of people in the environment.

More recently, scholars have utilized a computationally heavy approach to examine noise in urban areas. Scholars have developed a framework called ‘urban computing’ that lays emphasis on aggregation of big and heterogeneous data to understand complex urban problems (Zheng, Capra, Wolfson and Yang 2014). This research “Urban computing: concepts, methodologies, and applications” is relevant to this thesis as it aims to utilize the big data for providing an understanding of the urban environment. Likewise, Hunting Noise thesis uses the big data of 311 call center, filters, and then visualizes it. But Zheng et al. do not look at the specific question of noise in the urban environment. Several researchers have attempted to map noise, specifically in New York City. Hsieh et al. (2015) have researched the noise mapping in New 9

York through the lenses of social media platforms such as Foursquare, Flicker, Twitter, and Gowalla in tandem with 3-1-1 noise complaints. The very innovative feature of this research is their use of social media. They’ve included in their data any written text that is related to noise within the environment. So for instance, if someone has tweeted about a personal experience that includes the word noise, has come into their set of information for analyzing the presence of noise in the environment. What weakens the credibility of this research is that not anyone who puts a statement about sound or noise on social media is not necessarily referring to his or her personal experience of noise in the environment. In other words, one might put some abstract ideas on social media that words of noise or sound are just part of it without the intention of indication of either a real or perceptive presence of noise in the surrounding environment. That’s why Hunting Noise targets a set of information that has been directly and merely gathered from people that are directly encountering noise in the neighborhoods of NYC. The nature of these experiences are reliable as they are of disturbance to those who are reporting them, and that’s why they have decided to use 3-1-1 call center, aiming to find a working solution for the environmental noise that bothers them.

Another related work is The Acoustic City. This book edited by Mathew Gandy and BJ Nilsen investigates the relationship between urban environment and acoustics from various perspectives. One of the realms covered in this study is to answer this question that how music, place, and sound come into certain arrangements that contribute to the characteristics of particular cultures. The book elaborates the sophisticated correspondences between architectural elements, sound, and urban design. This chemistry can create various forms of acoustic ecologies. This collection encapsulates concepts from geography, architecture, musicology, and urban sociology, which makes it unique in this regard. Comparable to the work of Blesser and Salter (2009), this study takes a multidisciplinary approach toward the understanding of the sound in general and its relationship with the urban environment. One significant aspect of this study is its indication of musicology.

C) Spatial visual cues and auditory perception The last major body of the literature review addresses the section of the thesis that is centered on human participation. Chapter 5 describes the human participants I recruited to engage in a survey that studies the visual impact of trees on their subjective perception of noise. Here, the background studies that influenced the human participant survey are analyzed.

A major study in this area is the article of “Influence of urban shapes on environmental noise: A case study in Aracaju — Brazil”. This research discusses the in situ and computer modeling of urban sound in the Brazilian city of Aracaju. Guedes et al. (2011), firstly have applied a software called SoundPlan for evaluation of current acoustic scenarios. Next, they’ve made evaluations based on hypothetical scenarios for the unoccupied parts of the city of Aracaju. The final conclusions of this research indicates that some physical elements of the urban profile impact the environmental noise. These features are the existence of open spaces, construction density and buildings physical form.

This study is similar to the Hunting Noise thesis as it bases its analysis on the influence of urban form and illustrates that they impact the urban noise. Another particular upside of the study can be found in the second phase of measurements. This part can provide designers and urban planners with the information of how the unbuilt environments can be designed with access to computational modeling of urban noise, so that the residential spaces can be least impacted sound.

The downside of the study is that it does not count in the subjective perception of noise by people. This study per se relies on acoustic devices that measure the physical intensity of sound in the environment. This is very different than the main goal of the thesis which is about how the source noises impact people in effect in their daily life. Another limitation of the study is that it is bound to only highway and streets as main source of the noise and does not consider other noise types that are enumerated in this thesis.

Another helpful study in this field is “Sound attenuation through absorption by vegetation”.

Watanabe et al. (1996) present a scientific method for examining the impact of vegetation on sound attenuation. They delineate the exact correlation between coefficient factors of sound reduction for four types of trees. This study strengthens the position of the thesis that trees have a major effect on sound reduction. It also emphasizes that this quality of trees is directly related to absorbing trait of their leaves and that the tree trunks does not reduce sound. So in addition to elements discussed by Guedes et al. (2011) in previous study, now we can firmly take into account the impacts of trees in urban environment on mitigating the sound.

The article, however, does not have a subjective approach, but a numerical and objective one. Similar to Guedes et al. (2011) it does not include the impact of the noise on human mind. They emphasize sound as an energy form and how much tree leaves attenuate this energy. This study also does not take into account the real environment conditions, but measures the correlation between vegetation and sound absorption in the controlled environment of the experiment, using a reverberation-chamber method.

A research that is more closely dealing with the direct influences of sound on people’s perception is “Influence of Personal Factors on Sound Perception and Overall Experience in Urban Green Areas. A Case Study of a Cycling Path Highly Exposed to Road Traffic Noise”. This study taps into the significance of the green areas within the urban environment and the negative effects of noise on the restorative quality of those spaces. Aiello et al. (2018), investigate one location in Belgium as their main case study. The location is a cycling path that has been isolated from adjacent environments by vegetation, but it is highly exposed to traffic noise from a highway on one side. The method used in this research is a survey that engages people experiencing that path. The researchers have distributed questionnaires among various people. The questionnaire is designed to examine the correlation between three personal factors and the sensitive reaction to noise.

There a number of merits in this study. First of all, it focuses on personal perception of noise rather than the physical quality of environmental noise, which is precisely the concentration of this thesis. Secondly, it has taken into consideration three personal characteristics that directly affect perception of noise. Those factors are: noise sensitivity, visual attention, and attitude toward greenery. Thus, unlike the other precedents analyzed in this section of literature review, 12 this team of researchers look at environmental noise through a very detailed subjective lens of personal perception. Of the three personal factors examined in this study, visual attention is of particular significance to this thesis, as the final part of Hunting Noise explores the effect of visual cues of greenery on noise perception. Interestingly, according to Aiello et al. (2018), those with higher visual attention benefit more from the greenery in noise perception. In other words, this finding implies that visual impact of tree reduces the psychological perception of noise more evidently than other factors.

Although this article accentuates the importance of subjective factors in coping with urban noise, but it does not approach the impact of visual cues of the trees in a neutral way. Participants in this study are first asked to fill out a form that explicitly determines if they are attentive to visual greenery or not, and then asks them to rate their noise sensitivity while they experience the green pathway. This can make the participants aware and could bias the results with regard to the visual impact of trees on noise perception in the study. Hence, in design of the survey of this thesis, there are no questions that would provide a clue that the participants’ reactions are being examined to determine the visual effect of trees. In this way, the responses can be more natural and the results more reliable. Another limited aspect of Aiello’s research is that it only focuses on a particular cycling path as the main place of people’s presence and solely relies on one type of noise which is street traffic.

An area of research that is very relevant to this thesis are studies on synesthesia. A very seminal work on this topic is the book The Frog Who Croaked Blue: Synesthesia and the mixing of the senses. Synesthesia is a type of perceptual experience in which the sensory information in various sensory domains (hearing, sight, touch, etc.) becomes intermingled. This book, by Jamie Ward (2008), not only provides the reader with a comprehensive and deep understanding of synesthesia but also connotes how this understanding can be useful in regards to the intermingling of senses in perception of the environment. The book, however, articulates various reasons for researchers in the area of cognition and culture to be cautiously careful in their appropriation of exciting research in the realm of brain sciences. Ward elaborates several categories. A special one of those groups related to this thesis is “seeing” sounds as colorful cues and having visual brightness. In this thesis, the premise of the investigations is that hearing urban noise is interconnected with spatially visualizing the location of the source noise. 13

This book has a variety of benefits to the discussion of the intermingling of the senses. James Ward illustrates the developmental stages of synesthesia, how it begins from childhood until adolescence. Also the book explains the history of synesthesia treatment. Another useful takeaway from this scholarly research is that synesthesia happens based on the “adjacency principle”. This explains that the brains of some individuals make more connections to neighboring cortical areas than those of other people. Ward illustrates examples of how common patterns in various categories of synesthesia likewise correspond to intuitions in non- synesthetes, such as the tendency to perceive louder noises as visually brighter. This very interesting case explains why when the spaces are dimmer in terms of lighting people may perceive it as quieter, and as a result subconsciously regulate their voices in lower pitches.

The article “Synesthesia: A new approach to understanding the development of perception” is another valuable and more recent source in this realm. Written by F. Spector and D. Maurer (2013), this research provides scholars with a new framework for the theories of intersensory development. The authors argue that by understanding the nature of the synesthesia, we can gain knowledge about the intersensory development from childhood to adulthood in all humans.

A significant advantage of this study is a detailed comprehension that causes of synesthesia can be traced back to the childhood of the synesthetes. This argument explains that inhibited or pruned cognitive-developmental mechanisms in early life can culminate in synesthesia. More importantly, those pruned developments can persist in various forms later on in all adults. This shows that the interconnectedness of senses is a common trait among all adults, but it just varies in degree for each person. The evidence of consistency in sensory associations between groups and across ages provides support for the idea that functional connections within and between sensory areas that are present at birth persevere to some extent into adulthood. This perseverance may be selectively exaggerated in synesthesia through the mechanisms common to us all: selective pruning and inhibition. From this perspective, consistent associations found among synesthetes or among typical adults are likely to be present in early development as influences on perception, constraints on the learning of 14

environmentally based associations, and effects on the readiness with which new words are learned (Specter, et al.).

Therefore, hypothetically the visual cues such as the volume, color, and texture of trees can impact the way various people react to environmental noise.

An overall shortcoming of this study, however, lies in its limitation to explain how links between different senses, become tangible and applicable in everyday life situations. In contrast to Wards’ study about the mechanisms of influences of various senses on other senses, this research overlooks that significant aspect of scholarly work. This article overwhelmingly focuses on how toddlers' interaction with adults who are already reflecting degrees of intersensory perceptions; shapes their perceptive abilities in adulthood too.

Another important thread of research in line with the interaction of senses are studies on biophilia. The significance of this spectrum of research lies in the fact that biophilic qualities are more strongly connected to design fields. A very spot-on research in this regard is the article of “Biophilic Design: An Opportunity to Regenerate Life”. The author, Amanda Sturgeon (2016) explains how most people spend 90% of their time in designed environments and how natural stimuli such as the movement of the sun help us to harmonize our life with nature. Sturgeon contends that the new discipline of biophilic design has the capacity to purposefully revive the human-nature connection through design elements.

Some insights gained from this article are indicative of how biophilic design can be suitable for stress reduction, better cognitive performance and emotion enhancement. These are very similar to the impacts that noise can have on people from the health perspective, discussed earlier in this literature review. A remarkable contribution of biophilic design can be found in reducing blood pressure levels and heart rate. According to Sturgeon (2016), visual connections with nature can lower the aforementioned negative aspects. This strengthens the need, explained in this thesis for understanding how the natural visual stimuli of trees in the urban environment can also reduce noise perception levels. This in return leads to lower blood pressure and heart rate as well.

This study does not tap into details of the how exactly nature ameliorates the negative health problems through interactions of the senses. It mainly serves as theoretical work to highlight the need to embrace biophilic approaches in design and architecture fields. The study mostly delves into details of patterns and frameworks as design guidelines for biophilic considerations. Studies in favor of biophilic design approaches support the proposal in Hunting Noise to focus on trees as the most appropriate response to mitigating the negative health impacts of urban noise.

Chapter 3. Methodology

The methodology of this research is structured in four major phases, as follows:

New York City 3-1-1 Call Center Through my literature review it became clear that noise has not been covered adequately among the determiners of people’s engagement with public spaces. Therefore, in this research, I determined to focus on that factor. The 3-1-1 call center is a hub, where residents of NYC can either pick up the phone and make a call or go online and file a report about a complaint. The nature of the complaints can be simply anything from a dog barking loudly next door or vandals making graffiti on the walls. This governmental center provides free access to the public on a website (https://www1.nyc.gov/311/). Anyone can access the information and raw data are publicly available there.

For the purpose of this study, I have focused on the range of complaints that are just about noise. They’ve been selected for the calendar year of 2016. Translating this raw data into meaningful graphs is done in the next step. The graphs convey more meaning by showcasing some relevant indicators such as the intensity of noise complaints for each neighborhood or the changes of noise perception over a 24 hour for a given neighborhood.

Data Visualizing Calls After finding the right source and filtering out the rest of the complaints from the spectrum that are noise complaints in a given time period, in this phase the raw data are converted into visually readable information. For doing so, data visualization technique is used. Data visualization as a term generally refers to any means and efforts that aim to highlight the application of data by providing them with a visual context.

One of the most cutting edge tools for visualizing data is Tableau software. It is an interactive data visualization tool. Its initial usage was to commercialize research at Stanford. Tableau is indeed a mapping instrument that enables user to connect spatial files

17 to plotting longitude and latitude coordinates. Using the software, the raw data from 311 call center (Figure 4) were translated to visual maps.

For further clarification about the nature of the function of the NYC 3-1-1 hub, it should be noted that this hub does not respond to the complaints by direct interventions, such as the police department. This center is for non-emergency service requests and for emergency calls –majority of which involve police intervention- people call the typical 9- 1-1. The 3-1-1 hub provides open access for both filing a service request as well as to public monitoring of the real-time online requests status, across the NYC. They refer each request to the appropriate department to be addressed. A considerable number of complaints are generally referred to the Department of Environmental Protection, including the noise-related ones (for more details: NYC311).

Figure 4. Before visualizing, the raw data tables looked like this, excluding any meaningful meaning (Source: 311 call center data).

Mapping Perceptive Complaints Meaningful information as outputs of previous step are reflected in forms of interactive maps and graphs. A website has been created, named “Noise Hunter” that reflects all the results (archived and available in the appendix of this thesis). This dashboard projects the maps, graphs and stats that were taken from the NYC Open Data platform which shows the complaints from 3-1-1 call center.

Noise Hunter merges this data with data from Central Park station of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). Temperature and snowfall data from that source help to better understand how spatial cognition of noise might change throughout the year under various weather circumstances. One notable instance is that although it would be expected snowy days are quieter, because of being less crowded, but it turns out that’s not the case. This study is geared toward certain types of maps from this dashboard to analyze the relationship between environmental factors and noise perception. This is explained in the following part.

Direct survey with questionnaire Building upon analyzed precedents, I devised an experiment to test the visual impacts of trees in mitigating noise perception with human subjects. I began with the following hypothesis: the mitigating impact of trees on a human subject’s perception of noise in an urban neighborhood exceeds what would be expected from the trees’ objectively measured sound-blocking characteristics. That is, the appearance of a dense tree canopy should influence whether a subject finds a particular level and type of sound to be distracting or disturbing.

The main tool used to evaluate the perceptions of my test subjects is a designed questionnaire. Due to the shut-down of the university in March, I was forced to design a survey that could be administered remotely. I recruited undergraduate and graduate students in architecture as my test subjects. I utilized a questionnaire, combined with photographs of particular neighborhoods in New York City, and audio sound files to which the survey participants would listen while viewing the photographs. (The experiment is described in greater detail in Chapter 5.) In designing the questionnaire of this research, two major precedent studies were utilized. These are the study by Sarah Payne (2013), “The Production of a Perceived Restorativeness Soundscape Scale, and “A Fuzzy Rule Based Framework for Noise Annoyance Modeling,” which describes the research of Dick Botteldooren and Andy Verkeyn (2003).

Payne’s survey methods are applicable to research such as Seeing Noise that apply sound perception surveys. One of the relevant procedures presented in that study asks participants “to 19 imagine yourself in each of these environments. Imagine you are the person who is walking through and experiencing the environment. In particular I would like you to listen to the sounds around you”. Following Payne’s example, the Seeing Noise survey asks participants whether the sound would impact their behavior, would it be, for example, “disturbing” to their activities.

From the Botteldooren and Verkeyn research, I adopted the survey technique to consider a range of answers that smoothly change from the least annoying to highly annoying. In their survey, the possible answer choices ranged from: “not at all, slightly, fairly, strongly, and extremely.” These terms represent five varieties of the degree to which the perception of noise would disturb the participant. Taking this into account for Seeing Noise research, my survey answers are clustered in five ranges, from the least distracting to highly interrupting.

It should be clarified that the method by which Sarah Payne’s (2013) study has been conducted to create a soundscape scale, was based on both direct and indirect survey. The indirect survey asks the participants to respond to recorded audio-visuals from three different urban and rural environments in the UK. In the direct survey, the participants were asked to rate the soundscape of a certain urban park in the UK, after their actual visit to the place. The study by Botteldooren and Verkeyn (2003) has tested their proposed soundscape model in two surveys that have used indirect interviews of certain populations in Austria and Belgium. Their focus was on the auditory stimuli itself, which was majorly rail and traffic noise. This study did not include visuals of any sort.

The method by which the participants of this research were recruited was through solicitation of volunteer and interested people over email. The target population were all students of both the Architecture and the Landscape Architecture departments at Stuckeman School, Penn State University. This includes both undergraduate and graduate level students. Additionally, some professors were contacted, asking them to announce the request to participate in the survey to their students. Initially, 29 people signed up and finally 19 of them completed the whole questionnaire. 20

Chapter 4. Noise in NYC Neighborhoods

This section of the thesis is about the outputs and findings of this research. It has 4 major parts. In the first part, the factors to analyze the urban configuration are indicated. In the second part all neighborhoods of NYC are presented and discussed with their counts of noise complaints. In the second part, outlier neighborhoods are introduced. It is discussed that how firstly 9 neighborhoods are spotted. These neighborhoods have either significantly higher or lower number of noise perception as compared to their surroundings. Then, it is explained why only four of them are analyzed as considerable outliers. In the third part, each of the outliers are discussed in terms of their urban configuration. Finally, in the fourth part by comparing all outliers against each other, the urban features that attribute to the perception of noise in the urban environment are pointed out and discussed.

Explanation of outlier neighborhoods Outlier neighborhoods of NYC are the ones that have different behavior in terms of their perception of noise in the urban environment. They are different as opposed to their very surrounding neighborhoods. This distinction is made based on comparing the number of noise compliant reports of each neighborhood to its adjacent ones.

The numbers are extracted from the Noise Hunter website. This website is now available in archive format in the appendix. The website reflects the number of noise-related complaints for the whole calendar year of 2016. The data of complaints were gathered from the 3-1-1 call center. To easily spot the outlier neighborhoods, the noise complaint count of all neighborhoods has been written on the area of that neighborhood. These are all represented in a color-coded map. Figure five illustrates the overall color-coded map of NYC and figures 6-7 are zoomed- in maps of the neighborhoods that are different in terms of noise perception than their surroundings. The darker the blue, is the higher number of complaints have been reported from that neighborhood. The yellow and red circles on the map are the complaints counts are significantly different than their surroundings. The yellow means less noise perception and indicates more noise complaints.

Figure 5: This color-coded overall map of NYC, reflects the outlier neighborhoods, with red and yellow circles (Source: Author).

Figure 6: This image is the zoomed-in map of Manhattan-Queens area (Source: Author).

Figure 7: This image is the zoomed-in map of Brooklyn with exact number of complaints (Source: Author).

Figure 8: The zoomed-in map of the Staten Island with neighborhoods with odd number of noise reports in circles (Source: Author).

First and just by considering the number of complaints 9 various neighborhoods are detected. But just four of them are considered as the acceptable outlier as case studies of this research. Because in some cases the different number of noise complaints is not necessarily because of a different perception of noise, but of other irrelevant reasons. For example, one of the neighborhoods with a very low number of noise reports is where the airport located. There are very low number of complaints because the people in that area are either passengers using the space temporarily or they’re the staff who do expect the noise and are used to it. Therefore, such areas are not among outliers and the lower number of complaints are not part of the findings.

So, such cases are put out. 4 final outliers are chosen. To make clear that why 4 out of 9 neighborhoods are selected, all 9 preliminary neighborhoods are discussed as follows. Next, the major four outliers are analyzed in detail.

Neighborhood number 1, Central Park in Manhattan (unacceptable): The Central Park is located at the heart of the Manhattan. Clear from figure five, the complaint count for this neighborhood is 547. It is in stark contrast to all other nearby neighborhoods in Manhattan. The closest one in terms of recorded complaints has 2578 reports. So, the average complaint numbers in surrounding neighborhoods is at least 5 times greater than Central Park. Therefore, Central Park is behaving oddly in terms of noise perception. But it is not a reliable case study for this research.

This is because of a few major reasons. The plants, trees and absorb the projection of sound in the environment (Mishra et al. 2016). Secondly the park is a green area that does not have the factors of urban configuration. The park in itself is rather part of a larger urban environment. Another pint is that the type of the population in there are transient and not permanent (Fig. 9). Therefore, for example a mother and her daughter who perceive the sound of a few teenagers from a space in the park, wont log it 3-1-1 call center, even though they perceive it as annoying. The mother and the girl are in there just for a few minutes.

Figure 9: Central Park in Manhattan. In this environment people are engaged in a wide variety of activities. Although they may perceive noise, but since their presence is of a transient one, they are less likely to file a report on 311 call center about such concerns (Source: https://www.nycgo.com/articles/fun-things-to-do-in- central-park ).

Neighborhood number 2, the Rikers Island (unacceptable): The Rikers Island is marked with a yellow circle in the relevant map. It has zero recorded complaints. At first glance this area on the map is an outlier. Nobody has complained about noise in their environment. Whereas, some adjacent areas have high number of noise reports, 1677 as an example from the adjacent above neighborhood.

But when we take this case into more detailed consideration it becomes clear that area on the map is indeed an Island dedicated to NYC’s main jail complex and is only connected to the rest of NYC urban environment through only one thin road (Fig. 9). People in this isolated environment cannot easily log noise complaints. Also, it is not that much expected to complain about noise in a place like prison. The staff can also be categorized as transient population rather permanent ones. Thus, this neighborhood is also put aside and is not studied as one of

26 the basic case studies of this research.

Figure 10: Rikers Island. This part of NYC is kept in insularity with few number of protected buildings, serving as a jail complex of NYC. Prisoners would not have the luxury of complaining about noise. The staff would be considered as inveterate to any possible repetitive noise (Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc- out/transgender-inmate-found-dead-rikers-island-jail-cell-n1015576 ).

Neighborhood number 3, the LaGuardia Airport (unacceptable): Right beside the Rikers Island, Lies the LaGuardia airport in the center, with only 4 cases of registered noise complaints in the year 2016. Again as opposed to surrounding neighborhood, such as the one in the right adjacency with 1025 reports; there is much less of spatial perception of noise. In the airport the majority of population are passengers. Obviously they are transient people and do not reside in that neighborhood to be concerned with noise. Those who work in there are the ones that have used to that level of noise, in such a way that after a while it has become a white noise for them. In other words they’ve become impenetrable against the constant airplane noises. So we put this case out as well.

Figure 11: LaGuardia Airport. As it is evident in the image, this designated neighborhood excludes any major residential building (Source: https://newyorkyimby.com/2018/07/la-guardia-airports-8-billion-overhaul-making- major-headway.html ).

Neighborhood number 4, the JFK Airport (unacceptable): In figure 6 of Brooklyn, two of the neighborhoods are among the discussed outliers and are detailed in next passages. But the neighborhood on the right is the JFK airport. This neighborhood as shown in figure 6 includes only 4 complaints in the entire year, exactly similar to LaGuardia. The least recorded number of complaints from the surrounding neighborhoods is 429 counts which is comparatively much higher. But this neighborhood is also removed from the scope of this research. The same argument applies to this case as it was for LaGuardia (Fig. 11). In fact they have been categorized by New York’s government as the same NTA (Neighborhood Tabulation Area).

Figure 12: JFK Airport in Brooklyn. The majority of people in airports such as JFK, are in the space temporarily. So they do not tend to get into 311 center for reporting noise complaints. For minority of the population which is staff constant exposure makes them to perceive the sound as somewhat of a white noise (Source: https://inhabitat.com/inside-the-worlds-first-airport-potato-farm-at-jfk/inside-jetblues-24000-square- foot-farm-at-jfk-airport-terminal-5/ ).

Neighborhood number 5, the Great Kills Park (unacceptable): In the map of the Staten Island, the two top neighborhoods are also among the four main outliers. The one in the lower part of the image is the Great Kills Park. This neighborhood is marked with 1 noise complaint. The very nearby neighborhoods have an average of approximately 500 complaints. So the unusual number of complaints indicates this part of the NYC to be dissimilar to the rest. But this is not an acceptable case for the purpose of this research. Great Kills Park is a remote part of the Staten Island with no residential buildings of any type. Only people who want to spend their spare time pay a visit to there. Hence, the type of people consists majorly of transient population. They neither would be willing to log a noise complaint nor that there would be that much of noise in there. The area is an insular serene natural waterfront landscape with some trails.

Figure 13: Aerial photo of the Great Kills neighborhood. As this image suggests, the vast part of this neighborhood is naturally covered and unbuilt. Therefore there are no people constantly present in there and consequently there are not that much of noise complaints (Source: https://www.statenislandusa.com/parks.html ).

Now, the followings are the outliers that are reliable in terms of representing a different pattern of spatial perception of noise. They are the ones that have people residing and working in them and yet for reasons, subject to this research are perceived either as more quiet or noisier than their surrounding neighborhoods. The four outliers are as follows:

Neighborhood number 6, Crown Heights (acceptable outlier): This neighborhood is located in the center of Brooklyn. The noise complaints count for this neighborhood is 8416. This neighborhood is located at the heart of Brooklyn. It is an outlier for being higher than the surroundings in perceived noise. Figure 8 illustrates the map of this neighborhood. It is marked with H, for high in the following exhaustive analysis of each of the acceptable outliers.

This is an acceptable case study as an outlier for this research. It has a variety of building typologies in particular residential ones yet it is an outlier (Fig.12). This neighborhood with its 30 number of complaints is highlighted with a red circle in the middle of the Fig. 6. Its 8416 is aberrant as the surrounding neighborhoods have roughly an average of 3000 noise counts. So it is more than two times greater than the others.

Figure 14: Crown Heights neighborhood. This image depicts typical building forms in the neighborhood (Source: https://propertyclub.nyc/neighborhood/crown-heights ).

Neighborhood number 7, Stapleton-Rosebank (acceptable outlier): Another acceptable outlier neighborhood with a high reported number of noise reports is Stapleton-Rosebank. The reason for using the name of the two actual neighborhood in designating this outlier is NTA. NTA stands for Neighborhood Tabulation Area. This is an acronym used by the Department of Planning of NYC. They explain the reason for using this term, as set forth: “Since population size affects the error associated with population projections, these geographic units needed to have a minimum population, which we determined to be 15,000. This criterion resulted in combinations of neighborhoods that probably would not occur if one were solely designating boundaries of historical neighborhoods. Moreover, the neighborhood names associated with the neighborhood tabulation areas are not intended to be definitive”. This is to clarify that Stapleton-Rosebank, for instance, does not refer to one actual neighborhood in NYC. Stapleton 31 is one neighborhood and Rosebank is another one. But in this research it is considered as one neighborhood. This is because of the regulations of the source of this study. That the government of NYC has made such categorizations. Stapleton-Rosebank outlier is located in Staten Island (Fig. 14).

Stapleton-Rosebank has 1253 noise complaints. This is an outlying count of perceived noise reports, because looking at its context (Fig. 7) it has more than three times noise issues as compared to the approximate average of 450 noise complaints around it.

Figure 15: Hylan Boulevard in Rosebank (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hylan_Blvd_east_end_jeh.jpg ).

Neighborhood number 8, New Brighton-St. George (acceptable outlier): This neighborhood is also in Staten Island. It is the third outlier with significntly higher noise complaints and it’s a fit outlier for the scope of this research. It has permannet residents as it is mainly residential, yet it has comparatively and abnormally higher noise inputs than its

32 surrounding.

Although the two of the noisy outliers are located in Staten Island, Staten Island itself is among the quietest boroughs of the all five boroughs of NYC (Fig. 15).

Figure 16: Aerial view of New Brighton-St. George neighborhood with a mixed building typology (Source: https://ny.curbed.com/2018/11/5/18063012/staten-island-new-york-wheel-development ).

Neighborhood number 9, Windsor Terrace (acceptable outlier): Windsor Terrace is another outlier neighborhood that has remarkably fewer noise complaints as opposed to its adjacent neighborhoods. It is located in Brooklyn. This is another outlier conducive to the criteria of this research. It has permanent residents, it’s a built enviornment that hosts a number of building typologies, houses of main dominance. This neighborhood is marked wih L, standing for lower count of noise reports than its average surrounding.

Figure 17: Windsor Terrace. Despite being highly compact, people in this neighborhood perceive noise in much lower intensities, as the number of noise complaints here are much less than the mean of the all other nearby neighborhoods (https://www.wsj.com/articles/windsor-terrace-grows-livelier-but-more-expensive-1433543463 ).

Figure 18: Map of the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn. This neighborhood has a much higher number of complaints than its adjacent neighborhoods (Source 1: Google Maps, Source 2: Author).

Figure 19: Map of the Stapelton-Rosebank outlier neighborhood. Located at the northeast side of Staten Island, it is another neighborhood with high noise complaints (Source 1: Google Satellite, Source 2: Author). 35

Figure 20: Map of the New Brighton-St. George. This outlier is among noisier neighborhoods and is located in Staten Island (Source 1: Google Satellite, Source 2: Author).

Figure 21: Map of the Windsor Terrace outlier in Brooklyn. This outlier has a significantly lower number of noise-related complaints (Source 1: Google Satellite, Source 2: Author).

The indication of factors of urban configuration

Here the factors that shape the urban configuration are indicated and discussed. This is to clarify the design related characteristics of the four outliers. These factors are the following 3 titles: building typology, building heights and green areas. One fundamental reason for having these three elements of urban configuration for this study is as follows.

These elements are measurable. The elements should be conceivable in order to study their correlation with noise perception. Building typology is measurable by sources of Planning Department of NYC Government (NYC Housing Facts). Building heights is observable for each of the neighborhoods through Google Satellite (Google Satellite for Crown Heights). The green areas of each neighborhood is also well-documented by the United States Department of Agriculture. The information is accessible at Urban Forests of NYC.

- A: Building and housing typology: this is to explain the dominant function of the buildings in each neighborhood, for example: residential, commercial, etc.

- B: Building heights: The height of the majority of the buildings in each neighborhood are illustrated. Three categories of buildings are indicated. Up to three stories: low-rise buildings, between 3 to 10 stories: middle-rise buildings and more than 10 stories: high-rise buildings

- C: Plants and trees: This is the discussion of whether the given neighborhood has more greenery coverage than its surrounding neighborhoods or less.

The aforementioned urban elements are discussed for all the four outliers as follows. Moreover, a comparison group is also defined. This group includes four neighborhoods. These are not outliers. But they function as a normal case. Each normal case is selected as one of the neighborhoods adjacent to the abnormal (outlier) case. Comparing how different or similar are the normal case and the outlier, further facilitates our understanding of the impact of urban elements on spatial perception of noise.

1- Crown Heights (H) A, Building and housing typology of Crown Heights: The majority of buildings in this neighborhood are residential (Fig. 12). There is one cultural hub in this neighborhood too (Fig. 14).

Figure 22: The majority of buildings of Crown Heights in Brooklyn are residential (Source: Google Satellite).

Fig. 23: The crown heights neighborhood is majorly a residential one. Few none-residential buildings are marked with yellow lines on the maps (Source 1: Google Maps, Source 2: Author).

Figure 24: Another prevalent building typology in Crown Heights are cultural buildings. This is the Children’s Museum, with a construction much newer than other mainly residential buildings (Source: http://www.greenbuildingsnyc.com/2009/08/06/brooklyn-childrens-museum-is-citys-first-to-earn-leed- 39

certification/ ).

B, Building heights of Crown Heights: The most dominant buildings in Crown Heights are row houses. They have 2-3 stories and are low-rise buildings (Figs. 15 & 16).

C, Plants and trees of Crown Heights: As compared to surrounding neighborhoods, Crown Heights has relatively less green coverage. The main street in this urban environment is Parkway Street. In this street, there are trees all along the way, in the middle and on sides. But there are not that much of trees in between buildings and the street (Figs. 17 & 18).

Figure 25: Buildings in Crown Heights are typically row houses with just 2 or 3 stories (Source: https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/29/vote-adds-to-historic-ness-of-crown-heights/ ).

Figure 26: The orange lines on this map, locate the limited parts of Crown Heights that have some major buildings that are not low rise. The rest of the neighborhood has a low rise height (Source 1: Google Maps, Source 2: Author).

Figure 27: Parkway street view in Crown Heights. The green coverage in the neighborhood is comparatively less than others (Source: Google Satellite). 41

Figure 28: This map shows the location of the only two major green areas. Crown Heights is comparatively deprived of greenery (Source 1: Google Maps, Source 2: Author).

Normal case neighborhood for comparison: The normal case neighborhood to compare with Crown Heights, is Brownsville neighborhood. It is located exactly adjacent to Crown Heights, to the east (Fig. 6). It has only 1608 noise complaints, which is almost one seventh of the Crown Heights.

Brownsville is a residential neighborhood. High rise buildings in this neighborhood are considerably more than Crown Heights (fig. 27). It is as homogenous as Crown Heights in terms of building typology. This can be tracked from data census of Planning Department of NYC government, NYC Housing Facts. Accordingly, Crown Heights is comprised of 90.6 percent occupied residential buildings and the percentage is 90.5 for the Brownsville. In terms of vegetation the both cases are quite similar. Comparing the green coverage, they’re almost 42 the same. United States Department of Agriculture has published a resource bulletin of the Urban Forest of the NYC (Urban Forests of NYC). Based on this source, both Crown Heights and Brownsville have the same green coverage percentage of 10.1 – 20 % (Fig. 28)

Figure 29: Brownville in the Brooklyn, NYC. This neighborhood serves as a comparison case vs. the outlier case of Crown Heights (Source: https://time.com/3785609/brownsville-brooklyn/ ).

Figure 30: The map of tree coverage percentage in NYC (Source: Urban Forests of NYC).

2- Stapleton-Rosebank (H) A, Building and housing typology of Stapleton-Rosebank: Buildings in this neighborhood are predominantly residential. They are mainly single detached houses (Fig. 19 & 20). Another prevalent building types in this area are low-rise buildings with ground-floor commercial spaces and community facilities and two or three stories of residential above (Fig. 21) 44

B, Building heights in Stapleton-Rosebank: In this neighborhood building heights are normally low rise, within a 2 or 3 stories ran (Figs. 19 & 20).

Figure 31: In Stapleton-Rosebank the majority of the buildings are single detached houses. The area is mainly residential (Source: Google Satellite).

Figure 32: The yellow circles identify the areas that are not residential, but commercial. The rest of the Stapleton-Rosebank neighborhood is majorly residential (Source 1: Google Satellite, Source 2: Author).

Figure 33: The second most dominant building types are mixed commercial and residential buildings. Image of Bay Street in Stapleton (Source: http://www.statenislandrealty.com/property/660-Bay-Street-Staten-Island-NY- 10304-mls-1130890 ).

Figure 34: The orange lines indicate the areas of the Stapleton-Rosebank that are not low rise. The height of the buildings in the rest of the neighborhood are low rise (Source 1: Google Satellite, Source 2: Author).

C, Plants and trees of Stapleton-Rosebank: There are slightly more green areas in this neighborhood as compared to the previous one. Three major green circles are identified as opposed to the two of the first neighborhood (Fig. 24). Yet this neighborhood does not have so much of green spaces in general.

Figure 35: The Stapleton-Rosebank does not have that much of green canopy too (Source 1: Google Satellite, Source 2: Author).

The normal case against the Stapleton-Rosebank is the Grasmere – Fort Wadsworth NTA. This neighborhood is located in Staten Island, adjacent to the Stapleton-Rosebank, right in the south edge. In figure 7 it is marked with 319 complaints counts. This is almost one fourth of the outlier.

In terms of building typology, Planning Department of NYC reports it with 93.1 % residential units. This percentage for Stapleton-Rosebank decreases to 90.0 %. (NYC Housing Facts). In the aspect of building heights the two cases are almost the same, with low rise buildings being the majority (Fig. 33). Comparing the vegetation percentage, both NTAs have the common percentage of 20.1 – 30 %.

Figure 36: Aerial view of Grasmere. This neighborhood is primarily comprised of low-rise buildings (Source: http://www.realestatesiny.com/About-Grasmere-Staten-Island-NY.php ).

3- New Brighton-St. George A, Building and housing typology of New Brighton-St. George: Building typology of this neighborhood is a mixture of residential and industrial (Fig. 25 & 26). With the residential being the majority and industrial being along the sea edge. Residential buildings of the neighborhood are low rise (Fig. 27).

Figure 37: The New Brighton–St. George neighborhood has a mixture of industrial at the seafront and residential in the rest of the area. The image shows St- George Ferry Terminal (Source: http://www.haks.net/Preview/project.php?mark-sub=mark-sub&scat_id=5&pro_id=164 ).

Figure 38: The yellow circles highlight the areas of the New Brighton-St. George that are not residential (Source 1: Google Satellite, Source 2: Author).

Figure 39: Building typology of New Brighton–St. George neighborhood is mainly comprised of residential

buildings (Source: Google Satellite).

B, Building heights in New Brighton–St. George: The predominant building height in this neighborhood is a combination of middle rise and low rise (Fig. 28 & 29).

Figure 40: In this neighborhood, building heights is a combination of low rise and middle rise (Source: Google

Satellite). 50

Figure 41: The orange circles are the only parts of the neighborhood that have some high rise buildings (Source

1: Google Satellite, Source 2: Author).

C, Plants and trees of New Brighton-St. George: There are comparatively more green spaces in this neighborhood. Especially in the New Brighton area of this neighborhood, there is a relatively vast park, Jones Woods Park. The green coverage also found in other parts of this neighborhood (Figs. 30 & 31).

Figure 42: As it is clear on Google Satellite, residents of New Brighton-St. George neighborhood have more green spaces in their urban environment, as compared to Crown Heights and Stapleton-Rosebank (Source 1: Google Satellite, Source 2: Author).

Figure 43: Green circles on this map pinpoint the major green canopies of the New Brighton-St. George neighborhood (Source 1: Google Satellite, Source 2: Author).

The normal case for compare-and-contrast with the outlier neighborhood of New Brighton-St. George is designated as New Brighton – Silver Lake. This neighborhood ca be find on figure 7, right below the New Brighton – St. George with 502 noise complaints. This number is less than one third of the outlier in this context. The neighborhood includes some natural landscapes around the Silver Lake part plus dominantly residential buildings on the western half of the NTA.

The building heights of the New Brighton – Silver Lake falls into the low-rise category. Overall housing statistics for this case 90.2 % (NYC Housing Facts). In a considerable contrast, the percentage is 86.9% for the outlier neighborhood of New Brighton – St. George. About green areas, it can be observed (Urban Forests of NYC) that the two normal and abnormal cases belong to the same category of 20.1-30% coverage.

4- Windsor Terrace (L) A, Building and housing typology of Windsor Terrace: This neighborhood is largely residential with a few small commercial buildings along the main streets of the neighborhood (Figs. 32 & 33). Buildings are relatively old and brick row and wood frame.

Figure 44: This image shows the typical buildings of the residential neighborhood of Windsor Terrace (Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WindsorTerraceStreet.JPG ).

Figure 45: The red circle is the part of the Windsor Terrace that has a major concentration of commercial

buildings (restaurants and store). The rest of the neighborhood is mainly residential (Source 1: Google Satellite, Source 2: Author).

B, Building heights in Windsor Terrace: Buildings in this neighborhood are mainly low rise. (Figs. 34 & 35).

Figure 46: Windsor Terrace neighborhood is dominantly comprised of low rise buildings (Source: Google

Satellite).

Figure 47: The areas that are not low-rise (a mixture of middle rise and high rise buildings) are within the orange circles on this map (Source 1: Google Satellite, Source 2: Author). 55

C, Plants and trees of Windsor Terrace: There isn’t that much of spaces of plants and trees inside this neighborhood. Windsor Terrace, however, lies right beside two major green spaces of Brooklyn that cover almost all boundaries of this neighborhood. Those two major urban green spaces are Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery (Figs 36 & 37).

Figure 48: A view of the Prospect Park which is adjacent to Windsor Terrace on its east side (Source: Google Satellite).

Figure 49: Windsor Terrace Neighborhoods is located in the middle of two major green areas that each of them are almost as equal as the neighborhood in terms of the size (Source 1: Google Satellite, Source 2: Author).

Park Slope – Gowanus is the fourth normal case of the comparison group to check with Windsor Terrace as the outlier. Comparable information here even indicate even more meaningful correlationships. The Park Slope – Gowanus is located to the north adjacency of the Windsor Terrace. It has 4174 noise records for the year 2016 which is way beyond the only 611 case of noise perception of the Windsor Terrace. The information is traceable based on the map in figure 6.

The Park Slope – Gowanus is identified as a historic NTA with basically low – rise row buildings of residential function (Fig. 46). It’s percentage for residential buildings is 92.3 %. This percentage is 94.7 % for the outlier case of this study, Windsor Terrace. Another underlying correlationships is the presence of green areas in the two neighborhoods. Based on the tree coverage map, accessible at the Urban Forests data census (Urban Forests of NYC), the Windsor Terrace neighborhood has 60.1 – 70 % tree coverage. This is a very unique standing in all over NYC. Conversely, the normal case of the Park Slope – Gowanus is the poor group of 10.1 – 20 % tree coverage percentage.

The detailed interpretation resulting from these comparisons are delineated in following pages.

Figure 50: The old NTA of Park Slope – Gowanus in Brooklyn

(https://www.nyhabitat.com/blog/2013/02/04/live-like-local-park-slope-brooklyn-new-york/ ).

Comparison and Interpretation

In this part, firstly the four factors of the urban configuration of building typology, heights, streets orientation, and green spaces are compared for each of the discussed neighborhoods. Next based on how similar or different those elements are for each neighborhood, it is interpreted the factors of urban configuration that affect differences in spatial perception of noise in the urban environment.

A) Analysis of building typology: The main thing that stands out as we compare building typology in all neighborhoods is that in Windsor Terrace which is perceptively much quieter, there are fewer differences of building types in the entire neighborhood. This area is highly residential. Even though the other three neighborhoods are also residential, but Windsor Terrace is overwhelmingly residential. This is verifiable, by looking at the stats that planning unit of NYC government provides (NYC Housing Facts). For Windsor Terrace, 94.7 % of the NTA is occupied residential houses. Whereas, this percentage is 90.0 % and 86.9 % for Stapleton-Rosebank and New Brighton – St. George neighborhoods respectively.

For example, in both New Brighton-St. George and Stapleton-Rosebank there are areas that are completely industrial and commercial. There are waterfront related facilities and ferry terminals. Whereas in Windsor Terrace there are small areas with commercial functions mixed and directly in service for the residential buildings. They are mainly restaurants, groceries, and stores.

Considering the comparison group some more information is obtained. For Crown Heights as the outlier, the normal case of Brownsville, turns the building typology as a neutral factor. 90.6 % residential buildings in Crown Heights is almost equal to 90.5 % residential buildings of Brownsville.

In case of Stapleton – Rosebank, the Grasmere – Fort Wadsworth was the normal case. The normal case has 93.1 % of residential units. The outlier case is of 90.0 % residential units. So in this case, again the correlationships seen in previous comparison is further strengthened.

Against the New Brighton – St. George as the outlier, was the New Brighton – Silver Lake NTA as the comparison neighborhood. According to accessible data, the New Brighton – Silver Lake has 90.2 % occupied residential buildings, whereas the New Brighton – St. George is of 86.9 % houses. This also is a concrete connection between the homogeneity of buildings and noise perception records.

The quite outlier of Windsor Terrace has 94.7 % of its area for houses. This drops to 92.3 % for the Park Slope – Gowanus as the normal case. Figure 52 is a column chart that puts together all neighborhoods and describes their non-residential percentage. It is clear from the graph that the Windsor Terrace has less than half of non-residential typology as compared to other neighborhoods. The higher the non-residential typology per each neighborhood, the higher noise is perceived by its residents.

Non-Residential Buildings Percentage per Neighborhood

14.00%

12.00%

10.00%

8.00%

6.00%

4.00%

2.00%

0.00% Crown Heights Stapleton - New Brighton - St. Windsor Terrace Rosebank George

Non-Residential Buildings Percentage per Neighborhood

Figure 52. This graph depicts differences between each four outlier in terms of their non-residential percentage (Source: Author).

B) Analysis of building heights: Comparing all four neighborhoods, there is not much of a difference in terms of the height of the buildings. On average, almost all neighborhoods consist of low rise buildings.

This means that building height is not an impacting factor in the environmental perception of noise within urban contexts similar to these. Because in both cases of neighborhoods with high noise complaints and low noise complaints, the majority of buildings are low-rise.

Comparing all satellite images of the four outliers against the cases of the comparison groups, result in not that much of a disparity in terms of the building heights and noise perception. Also there is no available data indicating such differences.

It should be noted, however, this finding is not to dismiss the general aspect of building height as a factor. As one can easily imagine and understand those living in high-rise buildings in very idiosyncratic urban environments Such as Manhattan won’t enjoy some degree of noise mitigation, due to significant distance in between the street level and, for instance, floor 80. The relatively neutral quality of building heights as one of the elements of urban configuration is within the case study neighborhoods of this study.

C) Analysis of green spaces: The first two neighborhoods (Crown Heights and Stapleton- Rosebank) don’t have that much of green spaces. New-Brighton- St. George neighborhood has a few sporadic green spaces. Windsor Terrace does not have any green spaces inside. But its two long borders are some of the largest green spaces of the whole of Brooklyn.

There are some evident links between the amount of vegetation in a neighborhood and the intensity of noise complaints. In Crown Heights, the normal case of Brownsville reveals no such a considerable disparity. Both neighborhoods fall into the relatively deprived category of 10.1- 20 % green coverage.

For Stapleton – Rosebank (abnormal) and Grasmere – Fort Wadsworth (normal) the numbers

61 are better as they belong to the higher tree coverage of 20.1 – 30 %. Yet they share a common similarity too.

New Brighton – St. George is also equally comparable to its adjacent of New Brighton – Silver Park. They both stand in the group of 20.1 – 30 %.

For the Windsor Terrace outlier with less spatially perceived noise, however, statistics are different. According to the Urban Forests of NYC, Windsor Terrace is located in an area of with an outstanding percentage of 60.1 to 70 % of vegetation. This range is only 10.1 – 20 % for the Park Slope - Gowanus neighborhood.

Figure 54, is a graph that translates the numbers into a column chart. It makes it clear to see the how the variable of green area changes between the three noisy neighborhoods and the quiet neighborhood. As the percentage of green area increases the intensity of noise perception diminishes.

Percentage of Green Areas per Neighborhood

70.00%

60.00%

50.00%

40.00%

30.00%

20.00%

10.00%

0.00% Crown Heights Stapleton - New Brighton - St. Windsor Terrace Rosebank George

Percentage of Green Areas per Neighborhood

Figure 54. This column chart clarifies the correlation between the percentages of green areas in each neighborhood with how noise is perceived. In the Windsor Terrace where people made much lower noise complaints, the green coverage is drastically higher than the other noisy neighborhoods (Source: Author) 62

Chapter 5. Human Participation Survey

The impacts of three elements of an urban configuration on the spatial perception of noise have been meticulously discussed in previous chapters. The three factors of buildings height, building typology, and green areas were discussed. Out of them, the tree factor is, for the purposes of this thesis, considered comparatively more desirable due to its combination of environmental benefits, biophilic and visual merits, plus the potential indirect effects synesthesia studies imply for the moderating benefits of green areas. In so doing, we also take control of the possible impacts residential vs. non-residential as well as socio-economic factors and other complexities, by putting them apart and solely concentrating on tree/noise nexus in terms of visual/acoustic correlations.

Watanbe et al. (1996) have asserted trees can attenuate the physical energy of sound by their absorbing traits of their leaves. More closely related to this thesis is the research of Aiello et al. (2018), in which they use a questionnaire about people’s experience in a pathway covered by trees, while exposed to highway noise. In the literature review, insights from various studies, in particular synesthesia and biophilic studies, underscore the indirect positive benefits of trees.

Building upon analyzed precedents, this chapter explains an experiment I devised to test the visual impacts of trees in mitigating noise perception with human subjects. This investigation offers an understanding on this subject not extensively discussed in earlier research. This chapter continues in the next three major subchapters. Their order is based on the logical development of the study.

Survey Process I began with the following hypothesis: the mitigating impact of trees on a human subject’s perception of noise in an urban neighborhood exceeds what would be expected from the trees’ objectively measured sound-blocking characteristics. In other words, due to synesthesia, the appearance of a dense tree canopy should influence whether a subject finds a particular level and type of sound to be distracting or disturbing. If the hypothesis is correct, the visual impact 63 of trees in the environment actually contributes to their effectiveness in mitigating urban noise.

The main tool used to evaluate the perceptions of my test subjects is a designed questionnaire. Surveys that approach these sorts of investigations typically have questions such as, “How loud or quiet do you think this urban environment is?” Such formats of questioning, mainly address an objective and acoustic understanding of noise. Instead, the questionnaire of this research asks “how do you find the sound in this urban environment?” This seemingly subtle difference is comparatively more oriented to elicit subjective responses.

In designing the questionnaire of this research, two major precedent studies have been utilized. Sarah Payne (2013) has written the article “The Production of a Perceived Restorativeness Soundscape Scale.” Payne’s survey methods are applicable to research such as Seeing Noise that apply sound perception surveys. One of the relevant procedures presented in that study asks participants “to imagine yourself in each of these environments. Imagine you are the person who is walking through and experiencing the environment. In particular I would like you to listen to the sounds around you”.

In the survey of Seeing Noise, “each of these environments” as used by Payne is replaced by photographic images of urban streetscapes which exactly communicate each different urban situation that is under question. In other words, the question and answer are presented for each single image that depicts a certain urban environment. All those urban environments are from the four outlier neighborhoods that have already identified in the thesis as perceiving noise differently than the average residential neighborhoods surrounding them in New York City.

In the aforementioned procedure, Payne asked the participants to respond to the questions with and without visual cues. Human subjects in that experiment were supposed to first rate their perceived reaction to a recorded audio that is played for them. Then they are presented the identical background audio, while they see related visuals. In that study the variable was the presence or absence of the whole visual image and how this affects participants’ perception of the sound.

In this thesis, however, Payne’s method has been adjusted by the absence or presence of trees in the images shown to the subjects. What is under question here is how the presence/absence of trees in visual images can affect people’s perceived response to the same urban noise that is played as a background sound. Thus, we can assess whether or not the visual greenery of trees impacts the noise perception. Images in the Seeing Noise thesis are paired together from the same neighborhood with similar architectural characteristics where (to the greatest extent possible) the only changing variable is the tree density.

The second useful precedent is by Dick Botteldooren and Andy Verkeyn (2003). In their study “A Fuzzy Rule Based Framework for Noise Annoyance Modeling,” they introduce survey models that are aiming at identifying the inherently unclear concept of noise annoyance. They argue that the most effective way to address this notion is to apply “a fuzzy set of possible effects rather than to seek a very accurate crisp prediction.”

The study by Botteldooren et al. was discussed and referred to in Payne’s article. This study has a different arrangement of the answer ranges for the survey question. The answer choices presented for participants of the Seeing Noise are modeled based on the “fuzzy possibilities” that Botteldooren et al. offer as a more reliable approach to understand the perceived noise reactions. This is to consider a range of answers that smoothly change from the least annoying to highly annoying. One of the most applicable structures for the design of the answer choices is depicted by Botteldooren et al. is as follows: “not at all, slightly, fairly, strongly, and extremely.” These terms represent five varieties of the degree to which the perception of noise would disturb the participant, from “not at all” to “extremely” annoying. Taking this into account for Seeing Noise research, the survey answers are clustered in five ranges, from the least distracting to highly interrupting.

In addition, I have utilized a thesaurus to shape the answer options. The intention was to replace more abstract terms such as “slightly” or “fairly” with words that are comparatively more meaningful for the reader, especially in the context of noise perception. The thesaurus is advantageous in this respect because it provides a range of synonyms, from the least in degree of intensity to highest in the English language.

After examining a number of words, the final five terms are: still, unobtrusive, appreciable, loud, and disturbing. All of these revolve around the same concept of loudness. For each of those words, a concise description is also provided to the survey respondents. This gives more context and clarity for the reader. In so doing, we make sure that the participant has a vivid understanding of each of the answers. Consequently, their responses and survey results should be more accurately reliable.

Putting together all aspects discussed in the foregoing paragraphs, the main questionnaire created and used in this study can be found in the appendix B of this thesis. Appendix B includes all the instructions and side notes of the questionnaire as it exactly appeared in the real survey too.

The images presented in the questionnaire come without any caption. Hence, the participants have no clue about the change of the variable, other than their own perceptive reaction which is what this research is finding an answer for. The age range of the participants is in between 19 and 54. They are undergraduate as well as graduate students at Penn State University. The gender of the participants includes all and is randomly selected.

To recruit the participants they were invited through general emails. Then, those interested filled a contact information, using Google Forms. The only required information they were asked to fill, were email address, age and gender.

The sound tracks are played as four different files which are a part and parcel element of the questionnaire. The sound files are chosen in such a way to resemble the highest possible similarity with reality. The sound tracks are from actual New York City ambient noises. It includes a variety of normal life noises in public urban spaces such as traffic noise, people talking together, car and truck horns, etc. Another merit of these background noise is their consistency and homogeneity throughout the file. Plus, the duration of the sound file is long enough to completely cover the time each person needs to read and respond to the eight urban situations of the questionnaire. Yet they are not so long as to confuse the reader about when to stop listening.

They are provided in such a way that the participant does not need an internet connection and they can easily be played with any software that reads the “mp3” family of sound files. In contrast to sound recordings available through YouTube or similar sources, which I originally considered using, the mp3 files avoid participants being influenced by seeing certain urban images (for example an overcrowded NYC street) or any ads that may distract them from the main task. The source of the sound files is an open data platform called “Zapsplat”. The publicly accessible website provides a variety of sound tracks such animal sounds, bells, industrial, etc. The link to website is https://www.zapsplat.com/. The sound files come along the questionnaire in another attached folder for the participants.

Research that utilizes data resulting from direct human participation r, are required by academic codes, to undergo the investigations of the Institutional Review Board. The IRB committee of reviewers examine the study in order to make sure that the research does not pose harm of any type (physical, mental, etc.) to the human subject. Some of the major considerations of the IRB are as follows:

- Checking the way participants are recruited. - Checking if the researchers meet the qualifications of the relevant training. - Checking the main tools of gathering information. - Checking the confidentiality of data gathered from participants.

The Seeing Noise thesis has been reviewed and approved by Penn State’s IRB analysts with the study number of 14527.

Chapter 6. FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATION

In this chapter both the findings and interpretations of the outlier neighborhoods as well as the human participation phase, are discussed and explained. First, the conclusions from the analysis of outlier neighborhoods, discussed in chapter 4; are presented in the following paragraphs:

In this part, first the indicators of urban configuration are discussed in terms of their correlationships with the intensity of spatial perception of noise in NYC. This is done through following A to C sections. Next, the typology of noise perception is also examined and interpreted. In D to F sections, it is explained how elements of urban configuration correlates to the various types of noise people perceive in NYC.

A) Residential vs. Non-Residential Use (noise intensity) Taking into account all of the similarities and differences of the four outlier neighborhoods some pattern that have a role in the different perception of noise emerge. It becomes clear that the more consistency is in a neighborhood in terms of building types, there will be fewer problems in terms of perceived noise. In other words, when the nature of the building use (residential vs. non-residential) is more consistent throughout an entire neighborhood, the type of activities happening are also more similar, which can reduce disharmony of environmental sounds leading to the mitigation of perceived noise. This partially implies one of the basic logics for urban zoning too.

The Windsor Terrace is a fully residential area. With just some cafes, restaurants and stores and few worship buildings in the entire neighborhood. Other neighborhoods have comparatively more non-residential buildings. The map of the Crown Heights (Fig. 10) for instance, illustrates three major non-residential circles. Those three are significant cultural hubs for the Brooklyn, such as the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. Whereas on the map of the Windsor Terrace (Fig. 33) there is only one small circle of non-residential buildings.

B) Building Height (noise intensity) Building height does not play a role among all these neighborhoods in making the urban environment quieter or noisier. The overall building height of all cases is low rise. For example in the highly noisy neighborhood of New Brighton-St. George, there are two circles of high and middle rise buildings (Fig. 28). This is almost the same as the two circles of Windsor Terrace (Fig. 35) as a very quiet neighborhood.

C) Greenery (noise intensity) Green spaces influence the perception of noise in a neighborhood. The more trees and plants are in an urban environment, the quieter. The case of Windsor Terrace, as opposed to other neighborhoods, clearly proves this. Inside this neighborhood, there is as much green canopy as in the other three noisy neighborhoods. But this neighborhood is in the middle of two major green areas of the Brooklyn, the Prospect Park and the Green-Wood Cemetery (Fig. 38). Conversely, the other three neighborhoods don’t have this much access to parks and trees, neither inside nor in their surroundings (Figs 16, 23 & 31). This indicates the impact of green areas on reducing the perceptive noise in urban environments.

All in all, it is evident that among the three elements of urban configuration, the building typology and green canopies influence the way people spatially perceive noise in the urban environment. The building heights are not a factor in this research, as all of the neighborhoods studied are dominated by low-rise structures. People perceive lower noise within the space in the neighborhoods that have more green areas as opposed to those that have fewer plants and trees.

D) Residential vs. Non-Residential Use (noise types) To better understand how does the type of noise perception changes when urban configuration changes, the comparison of color-coded maps of outliers is scrutinized and interpreted. Figure 47 delineates the nuances of the variety of the noise perceived by people. The map illustrates the various noise reports in New Brighton – St. George as well as the Stapleton – Rosebank NTAs.

Accordingly, it is observable that the highest sensitivity of noise is against the following three types: loud music / party, air conditioning, loud television. This is similar in between both high outliers. What stands out as a dissimilarity of the neighborhoods boat, are car / truck horns, and jack hammering noises perception. These are more common in New Brighton – St. George, where the urban configuration has elements more conducive to harbors and shipping industry.

Figure 51: This map details all the noise complaints inputs for the year 2016 in the outliers New Brighton – St.

George (north) and Stapleton – Rosebank South (Source: Author).

Figure 48 depicts the sorts of spatial perception of noise in Windsor Terrace as a quiet outlier.

Figure 52: The typology of noise map in Windsor Terrace (Source: Author).

We can learn from the map two remarkable points. First, it is evident how noise perceptions are less spread and that how it is less intense, as there are much fewer colorful circles inside the neighborhood than the outer urban environment. We can also compare the maps of the neighborhood with less noise inputs data to the maps of neighborhoods with higher than normal reports of noise complaints. More significant finding here is that in Windsor Terrace the threshold of noise perception is decreased that there are more noise types of loud talking and car / truck music. 72

Direct survey discussions Next, in the following paragraphs the results and discussion of the findings from human participation phase are presented:

After sending out invitation emails to Penn State students, as the main recruitment instrument; a number of interested students signed up. Then, the questionnaire and the sound files were sent accordingly. The filled-out questionnaires from those who responded were collected together in a certain folder. To better compare and understand how the compile of the answers tell us, all the answers to each of the questions were transferred to a spreadsheet. The subsequent table presents all the actual data to this date (5/29/20):

How do you find the sound in this urban environment? Neighborhood 1, More treesNeighborhood 1, Less trees Neighborhood 2, More trees Neighborhood 2, Less trees 1- Still (pleasant or not noticeable) 1 0 0 0 2- Unobtrusive (aware of it but it wouldn’t impact my behavior) 5 7 3 2 3- Appreciable (it might start to impact my behavior) 9 7 6 4 4- Loud (it would be distracting to me) 1 3 3 3 5- Disturbing (very unpleasant) 0 0 6 8 Total 16 17 18 17

How do you find the sound in this urban environment? Neighborhood 3, More tressNeighborhood 3, Less trees Neighborhood 4, More treesNeighborhood 4, Less trees 1- Still (pleasant or not noticeable) 1 0 9 10 2- Unobtrusive (aware of it but it wouldn’t impact my behavior) 7 6 7 5 3- Appreciable (it might start to impact my behavior) 8 8 2 2 4- Loud (it would be distracting to me) 0 3 0 0 5- Disturbing (very unpleasant) 0 0 0 0 Total 16 17 18 17

Table 1. This table puts together all the data from the questionnaires (Source: author).

This table is designed in a color-coded outline. The dark/light green represents the more/less tress quality of each neighborhood. The red spectrum, from the lightest to darkest; reflects the range of reactor’s perception of urban noise intensity.

As a first step, this table is very helpful to see the overall image of how students have responded, all at once. This organization allows us to compare and contrast how each neighborhood stands on as the tree density changes. But from this table, it is yet not clear the accumulate reactions, and thus how in general trees visually impact the noise perception. To address this aspect, the next table reorganizes the same input in a different nexus.

Trees Density 1- Still (Very Low) 2- Unobtrusive (Low) 3- Appreciable (Average) 4- Loud (High) 5- Disturbing (Very High) Total Less Trees 10 20 21 9 8 Total More Trees 11 22 25 4 6 Table 2. This table translates table 1 data into information in terms of connection between trees density and noise perception (Source: author).

This table put the numbers together in terms of the overall impact of the tree density on five categories of perceived noise. From this layout, we can now understand the correlation between the two variables. As the table tells us, for “still” perception, the numbers are the same, so there’s no difference. But for unobtrusive response (low noise intensity), there’s meaningful connection, more people (22 vs. 20) find the environmental noise as low where there are more trees.

Research participants have rated the same noise as "loud” in presence of fewer trees (9 vs. 4). Also, in neighborhoods with more trees, fewer people find the noise disturbing as opposed to urban environments with less tress (6 vs. 8). The appreciable category was necessary for the structuring the answer range of the questionnaire. It allows us to rate the reactions equally for the purpose of measurement on the two sides of the medium intensity noise (average). But for the purpose of interpretation we have to put this choice aside, because the average response does not reveal anything about how trees intensity (the more/less duality) impacts human perception. Therefore in the next step of this process the third table is created and discussed the following paragraphs.

Survey findings

It is essential to once again point out that in the ideal conditions (without the pandemic) this part was set to be carried out in the IEL with in person access to higher number of participants (Immersive Environment Lab at Penn State). However, thankfully the core nature of the survey was such that enabled us to keep going on with the work by remote questionnaires. The findings are elaborated here and they can lay a conducive foundation for further future researchers to dig deeper into the questions of this study (or similar ones).The conclusion of this part of the 74 thesis can be clustered in the followings:

1- More trees equals less perceived noise. We can evidently gather that urban situations with more trees, decrease the mental perception of the source noise, as opposed to environments with less trees and yet the same source noise. The following table condenses the previous table in such a way that clearly communicates this conclusion.

Quiet Loud Total Less Trees 30 17 Total More Trees 33 10 Table 3. The direct the visual/auditory connection (Source: author).

This table, distills the information of the last one in an overall structure by putting the appreciable category of perceptive sound out. As discussed previously, the intermediate group of “appreciable” works neither against nor for loudness or quietness. Yet it played a pivotal role in giving an evenly distributed range of answers for the reader to most effectively represent his/her reaction between the two options on each side of the average group of “appreciable”.

Another modification from the previous table into this one is that instead of the remaining four categories of “still”, “unobtrusive”, “loud” and “disturbing”, now we have the two overarching terms of “Quiet” and “Loud”. The numbers in the quiet column are the sum total of the still and unobtrusive answers. The loud and disturbing have been accumulated into loud. This makes it easier to see the main pattern among people.

Numbers tells us that the participants’ aural perception of noise intensity changes considerably under the visual clues. Where there are more trees more people categorize it as “quiet”, vs the same neighborhood (same street) and same noise volume, but less trees (33 vs. 30 in the table). People’s perception of loudness is significantly more acute for urban places where they just visualize less trees (17 vs. 10). All in all, the findings are in vivid alignment with the primary hypothesis of this research about the intermingling of senses in urban environments.

2- The correlation works more clearly when the trees density contrast is higher. In previous analysis, it was indicated that the intrinsic sound intensity of each neighborhood is different, so that we can gauge participant’s noise sensitivity as well. The same principle is applied to visual contrast too. As it is evident from the images in the questionnaire, neighborhood 4 has been chosen in such a way that has less disparity in terms of the tree density. The pair of images for the 7th and 8th questions are also from the same street from the neighborhood. But in reality the contrast in between the parts of the street with higher and lower tree density are certainly less apparent as compared to the other three pairs of images.

This, as a control mechanism channels our attention to see if we reduce the visual impact of the trees, will the response change clearly or not. The numbers in Table One are telling, if we take a close and careful look at the statistics. In neighborhood four, the loud answers (“loud” and “disturbing”) are zero. People find that neighborhood quieter. The overall quiet response (the sum of “still” and “unobtrusive”) is 15 for “less trees” and 16 for “more trees” (neighborhood four). Almost the same. Whereas in other neighborhood the difference is more tangible.

In simple terms, neighborhood four works as an odd case as compared to other three neighborhoods. The difference in between the trees density in between the two images presented to the participants is clearly much less than the other three pairs of images. Accordingly, the numbers (Table One) elucidate that people also find the perceive noise intensity almost the same for the two images.

3- Visual cues are even more influential for the louder sounds. Numbers can yield us to yet another nuance of the intermingling of the senses. Table Three connotes how the extreme ends of the aural perception are different under the impact of visual triggers. In other words, the difference between how people find the environmental noise different under the tree influence, is more when the noise is louder. Table 3 is the evidence to this finding. 30 answers of “quiet” perception vs. 33 one choices of “loud” rating when the presence of trees changes from less to more. The dissimilarity number here is only 3. However, when the auditory stimuli is loud, the difference jumps to 7, double the difference of “quiet”. 76

So again when the physical noise is comparatively low, less people find it different when there are more trees against less trees. But when the source noise is higher the impact of the tree density is much stronger.

It should be reiterated here that this is a finding within the very specific study population of this research.

4- Direct survey findings aligns with the indirect survey results (3-1-1 data center). As discussed previously, the greenery was among elements of urban configuration that was impactful on the differences of noise complaints according to the statistics of the 3-1-1 call center. It was accentuated that indeed the trees was the most impactful as compared to the building heights and building typology. This was examined both in terms of how each outlier neighborhood stands as opposed to their surrounding neighborhood; as well as how each of the four neighborhood are comparable against one another.

The Windsor Terrace outlier, had significantly lower counts of noise perception, surveyed indirectly by thousands of New York City residents. The salient feature (or more accurately called as an advantage) was its sizable higher coverage with the greenery as well as adjacency to vast green areas (for detailed numbers and elaborate discussions, you can refer to the section C of this same chapter). This indicates the alignment of the direct survey findings with big data from 3-1-1 call center. In other words, this very recent direct survey through questionnaire supports the strong impact of the trees on mitigation of perceived urban noise.

All in all, the tentative findings of this direct survey suggest that trees not only physically absorb the energy of the sound waves, but they also decrease the perception of the source sounds. The data show that one clearly effective way the greenery does this, is through their visual qualities. This becomes more meaningful in the context of synesthesia (the range of interactions and intermingling of senses, elaborated in the literature review chapter) as well biophilic design (also discussed in the literature review; the practice among architects to increase the direct/indirect connections with nature for the health benefits for the residents).

This study draws findings that are helpful for architects and urban planners. It emphasizes the significance of awareness of synesthesia and biophilia. Trees provide us with various beneficial impacts in the environment, acknowledging that they decrease perceived urban noise is another reason to promote the planting of trees in urban environments.

Within the context of the general elements of urban configuration and design such as the shape, size, material composition, and density of buildings are considerably determined by economics, the climate, building codes, etc. There are certain limitations to the modifications a designer can propose for these structures. In many ways, however, the addition of trees is less dependent on these sorts of variables that may be outside of the designer’s control.

Survey limitations It is worthwhile to mention that the primary design of the survey was set to be carried out in the Immersive Environment Lab (IEL) at Stuckeman School, Penn State. The global outbreak of the coronavirus, however, caused the lockdown and closures everywhere, including all facilities of the Penn State University in Mid-March of 2020. Thankfully the nature of this study was such that did not necessitate a direct or in-person interaction with the participants. Thus, the preliminary procedure was then modified for a remote survey. In doing so, we made sure that the students can participate in this research, while their safety and health being maintained. The IRB also approved this new adaption and therefore the surveys were emailed to students so that they can respond, while staying at home due to the quarantine measures.

The remote survey method did limit the experiment in one other significant way. Using the IEL, it would have been possible to ask the survey participants to listen to the sound files surrounded by the immersively-displayed neighborhood images while attempting to read, sketch, or perform some other task that would require concentration. Without access to the IEL, this aspect of the experiment, which would have more closely approximated the daily activities urban residents, became unworkable. Although one of the main precedent studies discussed in the literature review with regards to direct surveys had a population 22 people, but it is still essential to point out this study’s

78 population limitation as some sort of a caveat. By studying 19 people, this specific research can suggest potential and indicate possible future directions.

Lastly, it is helpful to clarify a certain constraint of the data from 3-1-1 call center. It was already discussed that noise perception is subjective. Different actors are at play in how the subjective perception of each individual differs from one another, including the socio-economic factors. This study’s scope of focus was on the correlations between subjective perception of noise and components of urban configuration. The area of socio-economic factors does merit whole other scale of possible future investigations.

Also, the second phase of this research was born out of realization of the fact that among the three major elements of the urban configuration, the greenery was both more influential while also more reliably measurable. Objectively, there are more reliable sources of the changes of the percentage of the greenery in each of the neighborhoods. Subjectively, more precedents had led to the possibility of visual potentials of the tree in mitigating perception of noise.

Future directions

Here two categories of future directions for further research are introduced and discussed. First, those possibilities that have been indirectly suggested by the results of this study, but more detailed investigations and with higher number of participants can make them more reliable.

Second type includes the potential questions that were out of the scope of this thesis but are relevant and can lead to similar applicable findings.

1- The younger population has comparatively higher tendency towards visual/auditory interconnectedness. One of the remarkable, yet inconclusive and speculative readings from data that I came across can imply the age factor. That younger people are more impacted visually in how they perceive urban noise that older ones. This can leave a potential for further future investigations.

2- The correlation probably depends on person’s sensitivity. Another subtle pattern and yet worthy of much further meticulous studies is that those who are more sensitive in terms of hearing, get more impacted visually as well. The second neighborhood has an associated noise file that is inherently louder than the rest of the files. This was intentional structuring helps us to spot those of the responding population who have ears and brains that process sound more vigorously and are more sensitive. The only times that someone decided to choose a noise as very high (disturbing), according to the table is in neighborhood 2. Those who have made such decision are the same people who have the highest differences in response to other neighborhoods in the rest of the questions. They are who contrary to some of the other students, rate the same streets louder with fewer trees while the noise is constant.

Again, this is not a conclusion of this study, as it was out of the direct scope of the research question. It merely points out some clues for more studies with possibly higher number of participants to more reliable draw such a conclusion.

3- The correlation is different, possibly depending on the sex of the participant Another secondary implication of the survey hints that among the “female” population the interaction of senses is more impactful, as compared to the percentage of “male” responders. This also encourages for more potential forthcoming research.

4- Various observations of trees can serve several other potential advantages. Some possible questions for future researchers are out of the framework of this study, yet relevantly merit thorough studies. One is how the changes of trees in summer times versus winter, might change the balance between the visual impacts of trees on perceived acoustic environment. A future study could examine the evergreen percentage of planted trees compared against the deciduous types of trees. In other words, how much of the planting should be dedicated to deciduous versus evergreen plants to assure the maintenance of the synesthesia- based impact of the trees in urbanscape.

Another considerable trend of studies can focus on how the typology of tree shapes might have different impact on visually mitigating the perceived hearing of noise. Trees can create a sense of claustrophobia which might work conversely to beneficial visual impacts of the trees. So what height and form of canopies might give us the optimal benefits?

The other side of this discussion is a subtle but noteworthy aspect of planting variations. It was mentioned the need for future analysis of different function of the evergreen and deciduous trees. But the lifespan and the maturation process of the trees is also an impactful consideration for this equation as well. Time and maintenance are essential dedications for the full growth of trees. This study’s solution for perceptive reduction of the noise is underlined by the visual intermingling effect of the greenery on hearing noise. We are indeed proposing the living and organic element of the trees. Therefore, the variation of planting in response to these multiple variables are also significant potentials for future investigations.

5. Trees are the habitats for birds. How different trees can provide more habitat for birds as they can send a sense of calm amidst the urban noise and because evolutionary humans perceive birds songs as a signal of naturally normal conditions of life.

General findings Overall, this research delved into some various aspects of the gamut of the human perception spectrum in relation to the built environment. But for the purpose of scientific clarity, this study concentrated on very specific narrow nuances of this field; the correlation between the three elements of urban configuration and noise perception, the identification of outlier neighborhoods in NYC and in particular how the intermingling of vision and audition is at work in response to the impact of natural greenery at the context of urban environment.

This study, however, can lead to some more interesting and highly applicable and broader conclusions to open up further avenues for future researchers. For instance if the auditory/visual 81 nexus is at work based on the mechanics of synesthesia, how might the visual/touch be working in how we perceive and respond to the environment? More specifically, can the visual cues from natural sources of cold influence the way the brain interprets the immediate temperature of a surrounding environment, be it a residential building or a work space. This awareness can be vitally helpful for architects and designers. Having a access to natural views both indirectly – use of the digital interior covering- or direct access of the eye to cold environments such as snow covered fields and summits, glaciers and outdoor skating, may potentially mitigate the conscious experience of the temperature in the very immediate surrounding environment of the body.

If so, this may free us from the use of the air-conditioning (which by the way can be very noisy and thus result in reduction of focus and productivity). Therefore in energy saving which itself can both save so much dollars spent in this area that otherwise could be invested to sustain the natural habitat.

Moreover the very new approach of biophilic design can have numerous overlaps with the neuroscience of synesthesia. These can be probably the two different aspects of the same cognitive phenomenon that certainly merit further investigations.

Appendix A: Noise Hunter Website

This appendix presents the Noise Hunter website in archived format and in sequential images. The website is referred to throughout the thesis and has been created in part for this research. The website created in 2017 at Penn State as a multidisciplinary collaborative effort of Sohail Sadroleslami (Architecture Department), Cary Anderson (Geography Department), Britanny Freelin (Criminology Department), Emily Domanico (Geography Department), Shipi Kankane (Informatics Department), and Qingyu Ma (Geography Department). Anthony Robinson, Associate Professor of Geography, played the advisory role.

The order of the images here, represent the actual order of the Noise Hunter website pages.

Appendix B: Questionnaire

This appendix is for the questionnaire used in this research. This is presented in the very same format as it was presented to the actual participants.

Seeing Noise Questionnaire

Dear participant, Thank you very much for your interest and participation! This should take roughly 10 mins. Following are simple instructions for this questionnaire:

1) Answers. Simply answer each of the subsequent eight questions, by checking the box. Please check the box you think more closely (if not exactly!) reflects your feeling.

2) Sounds. The eight questions are clustered in four pairs. Each pair is from a certain neighborhood in NYC. Along with each pair image and question, comes a sound file. Sound files are in an attached folder, and each sound file number matches the number of each neighborhood (ex. sound 1 for neighborhood 1). Please first play the sound file while looking at the image and then answer the questions for each image. These are urban ambience sounds. You can listen to them anyhow you would wish, however it can be of higher quality on earbuds or earphones.

Also, you can listen to the sound files at any volume level you would prefer, but just make sure that level remains the same throughout the entire questionnaire. Do not hesitate to email me if you have any question about this instruction ([email protected]).

Here we go:

Neighborhood 1 Sound file: Urban Ambience Sound 1