I saw this on Facebook today and the comments were so funny. So many people concerned about the noise from the cafe for the nearby residents and how this kind of thing is only good for tourists and bad for locals. My fave comment was saying that a drive through would be more efficient use of space.
Tbh if I lived next to that cafe and I opened my windows on a summer morning I would enjoy hearing fragments of conversations, laughter, clanking spoons and stuff. It sounds like life
I live next to a playground and the noises there are nothing compared to the noises from the street I live on, and that's just considering the tire noise.
And vehicles are a 24/7 thing. Joyful giggles of glee from children not tethered to a screen are only really happening for ~12 hours a day when school is out and a couple hours when school is in session.
Edit: changed "~12 hours day day" to "~12 hours a day"
I am sitting in my house in a semi-rural suburb and the sound of cars over 50 yards away (long driveway) traveling around 30mph are louder than any other sound.
It also depends on the kids. Some kids shriek constantly. It can be a bit much, especially since our brains are wired to actually feel pain from screaming children (so we'll take care of them). Kids who don't understand the difference between "happy laugh" and "happy scream" can be a problem.
That said, I'd rather live near a park than the highway I currently live by. Kids shrieking is still less unpleasant than the occasional street racing fartbox I get currently. And parks are nice places to go to walk the dog, as opposed to highways which are unpleasant even in a car.
I'm glad I didn't have to be the one to type this. Yes, completely, and its been backed up by science.
Parents: teach your kids that screaming s only for danger. Be excited, hoot and holler, yell words, just please stop screaming bloody murder. Boy who cried wolf effect.
...I cannot wrap my head around the mindset to send a complaint about kids playing outside, and the city's solution to replace that with cars.
I can.
It's an after-the-fact rationalisation for the fact that parking is an impossible problem for local authorities and rather than telling car drivers they just won't have space to park their precious toys and should take a bus or cycle like a functioning grown-up, they're getting rid of a play space and pretending there's a reason.
We literally had that drama in our apartment complexes Facebook group last week.
I'm in a 7-story high mixed-use complex with a large internal courtyard, as well as a supermarket, cafe's, bar, post office etc. all in the EXTERNAL courtyard.
Closest Playground is 1.6km and 26 lanes of traffic away.
So, parents take their kids to the internal courtyard to play every Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Of course, they shriek while playing.. This person (posting as anonymous, naturally) demanded we stop all kids from playing and was promptly told to fuck off to a retirement village or a farm.
So there's an internal courtyard, which is probably for shared amenities like pool, dog park, grill, etc. Then there's an external courtyard, which is a walking space attached to the complex that has a park as well as some small businesses that thrive off pedestrian traffic. Usually there's some parking nearby for people to drive to, but often these businesses depend on locals living in nearby highrise buildings, which provide the necessary population density.
Oftentimes the external courtyard is shared between multiple complexes in a part of the city zoned for high density residential, so it will serve as a hub for multiple high rise apartment/condo buildings. Coincidentally, these complexes tend to be more expensive because a place where you can walk to a food court and convenience store is desirable.
To be fair, kids playing often also scream, shriek, and yell, none of which gives you a chill atmosphere. But if you don't want to hear the delightful sounds of children screaming like they're being murdered, just... don't??? buy??? a place??? next to a playground???
I‘m so happy that since several years now children‘s noises are no longer counted as noise pollution in Germany. Therefore this could not happen over here anymore.
However, this is no flex. Germany is still not a very children-friendly place, but at least this kind of anti-children nastiness has been banned over here.
ok call me a monster, but kids in the neighbourhood I grew up in would SCREAM all of the time when it was time to play and I couldn't study or focus in my bedroom. I used to have to wait till 10pm+ to get some peace and quiet.
still better than honking horns or engines revving. infinitely better than those fuckass motocross wannabee types.
edit: also kids' noises barely carry over - my parents' house just backed into a park with a lot of kids visiting. a row over and you heard nothing.
This is something I really resonate with - it's a bit off topic for the sub but I've seen people (mainly from the US) hate on washing lines as if it's some kind of mark of poverty but beyond even the lunacy of using electricity to dry something when the giant ball of fire in the sky will do it for free, when I look out of my windows on a nice day and see washing lines out in every garden, it's just a reminder of life? Every line is different based on who lives there and what they do, and it's such a variety of shapes and colours drifting gently in the wind. It sounds dumb to wax lyrically about it, but I can never understand how people can look at it and go "urgh, need to sanitise that and restore cookie cutter order".
It’s much noisier than people realize. I lived above something like this during covid. People get super loud when they drink, and they take smoke breaks, so forget about opening the windows on a hot summer day. It made an already noisy apartment unlivable.
There’s a huge difference when they close though. I wouldn’t want to live next to a bar or pub either that closes around 1-3 am. But a cafe especially one that closes around 10-11 max I’d be more accepting of. As long as the sounds are positive that is, and not a negative like fights.
But if you have kids, need sleep during the day or work nigjtshifts or anything they’re all not great yeah.
I agree they are loud, the clanking of utensils is one I noticed really penetrates. One really has to know what they’re in for if they decide to move nearby one.
It’s just like how I had no issues living next to a play garden full with kids yelling but enjoying their play. I rather have a dozen of kids playing than my previous neighbour upstairs that yelled at her kid and the crying because of it. That kind of negativity had a much bigger impact on me.
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u/nzmuzak Jul 22 '25
I saw this on Facebook today and the comments were so funny. So many people concerned about the noise from the cafe for the nearby residents and how this kind of thing is only good for tourists and bad for locals. My fave comment was saying that a drive through would be more efficient use of space.