Pollution of public spaces

I often think about public space — and especially in the summer. So many more people are out of doors, doing their thing, which, sadly, all too often involves making noise at a level I find anti-social. Why can people not modulate their voice and speak quietly, without polluting the air well beyond their immediate surroundings? Why must they play music loudly from their cars, bikes and decks? Use ear buds, people! Why do people insist on walking down the street talking on their phone — often using the speaker option? Phone calls are private; take them indoors, people!  

I fear that we have, generally, forgotten that we do not walk through this world as stand-alone entities. We walk with others — like it (or them) or not, we are not solo operators in our yards, neighbourhoods or city streets. As soon as we exit the private space we call home, we enter public space — and we share it. Be polite, I want to yell. Be aware, I want to scream. Be quiet, I want to shriek.

But the noise pollution and the air pollution persist. And, as I learned the other day, while listening to CBC’s The Current morning radio show, pollution of public space goes beyond just noise. It includes “visual pollution”, too, in the form of billboards. In fact, I learned, there are grassroots organizations trying to outlaw billboards in public spaces — to quiet down the “obnoxious” advertising that clutters buildings and streets and squares and, in so doing, obscures the architecture of the location that, in many cases, makes it the unique spot it is. But that uniqueness disappears when billboards go up, advertising products that are the same around the world.

In Montreal, the Plateau Mont-Royal borough has been successful in banning billboards, while in Toronto, the Public Space Committee is still waiting 15 years after first launching a complaint against a billboard that does not have the required license to be displayed. Fifteen years!

In the case of billboards, the matter of capitalism comes into the debate, I'm sure. But in the case of personal noise polluting public spaces, the only thing that comes into the debate is rude behaviour by individuals who have sense neither of the larger world around them nor how their mindless, thoughtless noise pollutes it for the rest of us. A pox on them! 

The bottom line is that I don't understand why more people don't enjoy and pay attention to the natural sounds around us. Sometimes it is pure silence, but, often, if one listens carefully, nature offers her own wonderful soundscape of birds and breeze: no ear buds needed. That noise? I'll listen to it any day, happily. 

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

Photo by Eddie Bugajewski on Unsplash