Regulating Noise in New York City: The Long History of Punishing Poor People and a Vision for Something Else

Noise imposes a significant harm on people, yet governments have failed to address this harm. Instead, they have largely just punished poor people for producing noise while making a living or having fun. New York City, for example, has spent the past century declaring one “war on noise” after the next, and has used these wars to criminalize street vendors, ban jazz instruments, fine gay clubs, and confiscate hundreds of boomboxes on city beaches. This Article provides the first history of noise regulation in New York City, offers an accounting of the present soundscape and the regulatory constraints at play, and then offers a novel and specific approach for noise regulation that avoids the punitive pitfalls of the past