In New York, there are two kinds of noise: the sounds of the city (car horns, loud neighbors, construction equipment, barking dogs) and the sound of New Yorkers complaining about it. In 2007, the city modernized its noise code for the first time in thirty years, in an effort to get a better handle on the first category. Despite the changes, however, 311 logged more than a hundred and forty thousand noise-related complaints between the winter of 2013 and the fall of 2014. That works out to one complaint every four minutes, day in and day out, all year.

Complete article: “Mapping New York’s Noisiest Neighborhoods“, Ben Wellington, The New Yorker.