I spent the weekend with a friend who lives in a hipper, up-and-coming neighborhood.
It was an eye-opening experience.
While we were chilling out on Friday night, about 7 pm, an invisible signal went out from inconsiderate person high command: it is time to blast your loud music.
The music of choice seemed divided between hip-hop that thumps and some kind of hip-hop/heavy metal crossover that wails and then thumps.
Image poached from tripleaxis.com
It wasn’t the worst experience, but I don’t know if I’d want to live with the constant noise especially since it’s unnecessary noise. You can hear the music fine at lower volumes, even pretty high volumes. These volumes were designed to broadcast the music like an identity, and subject other people to it.
I’ve been asking people all week: would you bypass fear of censorship to live in a quiet neighborhood? Meaning: would you voluntarily pay extra to live in a neighborhood that banned and enforced loud music with thumping bass, even if that infringed on someone else’s “freedom”?
Absolutely, as long as it is voluntary.
A smart community would ensure that people who aspire to live there would know what they are “getting into”.
Any cries of injustice would be ignoring that a community would most likely convene in some sort of meeting to ensure either these rules are followed, whether some rules should be repealed, modified, or created, which would ultimately ensue that the rules of a community remain voluntary & justified.
I would absolutely do this. Many gated communities have sprung up which even manage a car’s decibal output, meaning no aftermarket exhaust pipes that leave the car sounding loud – which also means no motorcycles. I’d love that, because I value quiet. Could problems arise? Sure; if you have a gathering and it gets just a touch too noisy or goes a bit later than community rules you could be subject to a fine…and that’s exactly the type of stuff I hated about owning a condo, something I’ll never do again.
The best alternative, of course, is to buy a larger piece of land away from other houses so you can pump your music all you want and your “neighbor” an acre or two away can do the same without you hardly hearing anything :)