Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. It’s 1am on a Sunday and the hotel bar several floors below my apartment has taken advantage of the cooler winter weather to temporarily reinvent itself as a nightclub. As loud, percussive thumps rise up and ricochet off the complex’s three towers, the space in between becomes a canyon filled with reverberating noise. The volume is enough to overwhelm distractions such as reading or watching TV. As for sleep, forget it.
I know, I know – people work hard and they’re entitled to blow off some steam at the weekend, right? Who but a Nimby-ish curtain-twitcher would object? One could just try to ignore it or put in some earplugs. Or, even better, go down and join in. Look, I’m sympathetic to the live-and-let-live approach – our increasingly fraught world could do with a bit more of it. But when it comes to modern life, there is more at stake from such nuisances than a little missed sleep.
More and more of us live in built-up urban areas. Earlier this month, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs released a new report that said 45 per cent of the world’s 8.2 billion people reside in cities. Seventy-five years ago, the global population was just 2.5 billion and only 20 per cent were city dwellers. Looking ahead, the UN says that by 2050, two thirds of global growth is projected to occur in cities and the remainder in towns.
In addition to more serious problems such as crime or a lack of housing, this urbanisation means a lot more noisy neighbours, squabbles over parking spaces and rows about thoughtlessly discarded rubbish. In bigger metropolises, whose populations can dwarf that of a small country, one can expect more overcrowding, bad driving, jostling for space on busy public transport and a host of other annoyances. Some of these problems are simply unavoidable when a lot of humans live cheek by jowl, but many of them are caused or exacerbated by a lack of one indispensable ingredient to city living: civility.
Having lived for years in London, Istanbul, Athens and other big cities, in my view it doesn’t help to regard civility – or thoughtfulness, manners, good neighbourliness, call it what you will – as an optional extra. The function civility plays in cities where thousands or even millions of strangers live side by side goes far beyond dutifully observing social etiquette. According to official figures, the greater Tokyo area is home to 37 million people. Yet anyone who has visited – and I’ve done so twice – will tell you that Japan’s capital is a world beater when it comes to good order. From quietly queuing in line to get on a subway train to putting one’s phone on silent mode when in public, dozens of small courtesies make life in this colossal city not only tolerable, but pleasant.
The population of the UAE could fit into Tokyo three times with a few million people left over, but having some consideration is no less important here. Last month, the country’s most populous city unveiled a special body – the Dubai Civility Council – whose collection of ministers, municipal chiefs, police commanders and urban planners aim to “build a city where order, respect and high standards prevail”, according to one report.
The committee’s first action has been to work with Dubai Police in tackling the ear-splitting noise that comes from some of the city’s souped-up cars and motorbikes, as well as drivers who are a little too trigger-happy when it comes to sounding their horn, especially in residential areas. This has been a bugbear for many Dubai folk for years; now AI-enabled radar will detect when the noise passes a certain level and document the offence.
At its core, civility is about quality of life. Several studies have linked the aggravation caused by loud noise and other urban stresses to increased rates of hypertension, sleep disturbance and mental fatigue. A 2023 paper published in The Lancet medical journal quoted World Health Organisation estimates that at least a million healthy life-years (disability-adjusted life-years, or DALYs) are “lost annually from traffic-related environmental noise alone in western Europe”. The costs of failing to encourage a little more thoughtfulness are real.
Sure, what civility means can vary by culture, location and legal tradition. What works in determinedly orderly Singapore, for example, might not be appropriate in Dubai. Germany’s tradition of ruhezeit – “quiet hours” – is impressively comprehensive, restricting a whole string of domestic activities from DIY to cutting the grass, to certain times. But it is an entrenched and organic part of Germany’s social fabric; imposing it elsewhere is unlikely to be effective.
Nevertheless, civility remains the grease that oils so many of our social interactions. Without it, big-city life becomes that bit more inhumane. I’m not saying we should all tiptoe around at home, that we should ban live music or stop people from having a good time. But taking a moment to reflect on the fact that we’re all in it together might make things that bit better for all of us.
