A Quiet Moment

Our goal of mapping these peaceful soundscapes in the CRD allowed us to tap into a valuable source of insight that high school students could provide. The information this demographic can supply is essential for developing unique perspectives on strong senses of place in the community. Teenage geographies are unlike any other age groups. The physical spaces where this age group are able to develop are subject to societal expectations and accessibility constraints that influence their spatial experiences. Their identities are grown and developed in these “third places'' beyond school and home. By locating where these students found peace in the CRD we were able to pinpoint the places where we could record audio. 

The soundscapes from these places were then integrated into our project. This story map is intended to be used as a proof-of-concept sample on how we could integrate into the R.U.S.H software. The information we collected serves as a example of how community sourced data can be used to map and save spaces of peace.

As a group, we visited high schoolers in the Victoria District. We first visited Mount Doug Secondary School, Claremont, and Parklands Secondary School. At each School, we brought a collection of materials, including a large map of the Greater Victoria area and stickers that the high school students used to locate specific locations where they found peace and places with a lot of noise pollution. In addition, we asked the students a set of questions that we as a group decided on, such as:

• Which sounds elicit a sense of happiness to you?
• What sounds elicit a sense of stress? Where do you find these?
• Where do you go to find a sense of peace?
• What sounds do you associate with school?
• What soundscapes do you associate with comfortability?
• What sounds where you live give your home a sense of place? Would it still feel like home if these sounds disappeared? 

 We collected the data the students gave us and used it to create an outline for our project, including places to visit and collect sound recordings. We transferred this onto a mind map. In addition to this data, we identified bird sounds that can be located within the major park areas, using the Merlin App.  

Here we can see the locations plotted by the students we interviewed. Each point on the map corresponds to places where these teenagers found a sense of peace, representing positive soundscapes within their physical spaces. These locations can act as visual representation of the teenage geographies in the CRD.

Merlin Bird ID App

Here is another map we developed with the help of the students. Each area corresponds to the regions where teenagers were unable to find a sense of peace. The plotted areas represent some of the negative soundscapes found within the CRD. These soundscapes feature sounds associated with stress and negativity, unfit for fostering teenage development.

A majority of our responses preferred what they considered to be "natural sounds", waves, wind, and bird song as this made up around 75% of initial responses (24/31). Under 25% our responses associated positive emotions with "manmade noise", chatter, fast cars, or ferry horns.

When asking about negative sounds 76% focused on man made noise ranging from people speaking too loudly, vehicle noise (cars, planes, boats), sirens and bells. Some had a negative reaction to natural sounds but they tended to be associated with the source of the sound rather than the sounds themselves (buzzing, certain birds, wolves).

While provided locations ranged across the CRD common themes were present. Positive responses almost all incorporated a forested area or a water body (frequently both) indicative that there is an appreciation for the landscapes the island offers. Areas with a more artificial soundscape were less common but still present in our responses such as the ferry terminal, or local stores.

Hubs within the community were provided as the majority of negative locations provided. Places like school, large intersections, or city centers like downtown Victoria or Langford were described as stressful with sounds being distracting or obnoxious.

In the age of ever-increasing wealth and income disparity and the growing inequitable distribution of essential human services, one’s economic standing and general health are more inexplicably linked than ever before. This has led to urban landscapes marred by environmental imbalances all over the world, and Victoria is no different. One of the by-products of the proliferation of real estate as capital and decades of flawed urban planning policy such as the urban renewal movement, environmental racism refers to the systematic exclusion of marginalized communities from decision-making processes that impact their environment, resulting in the construction of detrimental facilities such as landfills, factories, and highways in close proximity to these communities. Noise pollution, defined as any artificial and unwanted sound that impacts the health and well-being of humans and the entirety of the animal kingdom, is one of the many environmental stressors that lower income communities face.

Noise pollution as a direct result of environmental racism and its unjust policies are becoming a more critical aspect of environmental justice. Repeated exposure to noise pollution can result in a myriad of health issues including hearing loss, sleep disturbances, cardiovascular problems, and heightened stress levels. These impacts are exacerbated in communities that already lack access to adequate healthcare and other essential public resources. According to Bullard (2001), the environmental justice movement seeks to prevent environmental threats, as well as “incorporate other social movements that seek to eliminate harmful practices in housing, land use, industrial planning, health care, and sanitation services.”

In the Capital Regional District, this correlation between racialized communities of lower income and noise pollution is illustrated, albeit with few points, by the map on this slide. With the exception of the Swartz Bay Ferry Terminal, Victoria International Airport, schools, and a new development project, all other areas of reported noise pollution fell into census tracts which possessed a lower than average median income, with one point falling in the Tsawout Nation Reservation.

The structures of environmental racism tend to mirror the power structures of urban landscapes. Communities who are more socioeconomically disadvantaged usually do not possess the level of political and economic power needed to affect change and therefore are disadvantaged by power relations through land use and zoning, creating cycles of domination that perpetuate environmental injustices. The process of mitigating environmental racism and other environmental injustices in the urban setting must start with the active involvement of affected communities in urban planning and environmental decision-making processes.