Boston noise 311 requests

How this category is extracted

What counts as noise: Noise complaints of all kinds: residential parties, commercial venues, construction, traffic, aircraft, and barking dogs.

SELECT count(*)
FROM <boston_311_raw>
WHERE service_type IN (
  'Animal Noise Disturbances',
  'Automotive Noise Disturbance',
  'Loud Parties/Music/People',
  'Rooftop & Mechanical Disturbances',
  'Undefined Noise Disturbance',
  'Work Hours-Loud Noise Complaints'
)

Analyst tip: NYC dominates this category with the 'Noise - *' variants — Residential, Street/Sidewalk, Commercial, Vehicle, Helicopter, Park, House of Worship — plus the bare 'Noise' type. Calgary uses 'Bylaw - Noise Concerns', 'Bylaw - Disturbance and Behavioural Concerns', and 'AS - Animal Noise' (which is the one case where we fold animal-noise complaints into the noise category rather than animals). San Francisco, Austin, Boston, and Buffalo all have multiple noise-specific service types: San Francisco uses a single 'Noise'; Austin splits between 'DSD - Outdoor Commercial Venue Music Complaint' and the much larger 'APD - Non Emergency Noise/Alarm'; Boston splits across 'Loud Parties/Music/People', 'Work Hours-Loud Noise Complaints', 'Undefined Noise Disturbance', 'Animal Noise Disturbances', 'Automotive Noise Disturbance', and 'Rooftop & Mechanical Disturbances'; Buffalo uses 'Excessive Noise'. Chicago publishes 'Aircraft Noise Complaint' but without lat/lng, which is why Chicago doesn't get a noise heatmap.

See how noise is defined for every tracked city →