This is the key takeaway for understanding "sound-politics." The author explains that the state tries to control noise in two conflicting ways: one is based on the subjective idea of "nuisance" (annoying behavior), and the other is based on the objective, scientific measurement of "decibels" (physical harm). This conflict makes noise incredibly difficult for the government to manage.

The author makes a clever point here. There are so many noise complaints, but they rarely become official police reports. As a result, the endless calls just become "institutional noise" that clogs up the police system instead of actually making the community quieter.

This story about Ms. Freire's complaint shows just how slow and frustrating the government process is. Even though the system is technically working, it's so slow that the person who made the complaint feels like the government is failing her. This highlights the massive gap between rules on paper and real-world results.

This is the core argument of the whole article. The author claims the government struggles to handle noise because "noise" itself is a vague concept, it's hard to measure scientifically, and the laws for it are shaky. This sets the stage for everything else.

The author doesn't see law enforcement as a single, unified body. Instead, he describes it as an "unstable and heterogeneous" network of people who often disagree on how the city should sound. This means the police and the anti-noise agency have different goals and ideas

The paper concludes that the problem isn't just the noise itself, but a failure of governance and lack of resources to enforce laws. This suggests that technical solutions alone won't work without addressing the underlying political and economic issues.

This is a shocking statistic. It directly links high nighttime noise levels to a major health problem (insomnia) for a huge majority of residents. This clearly shows the convergence between the measured high noise levels and the perceived negative health impacts. This would be a great quote for Project 2 or 3.

Even in residential areas, the average daytime noise level (55.42 dB) is higher than the WHO's recommended maximum (50 dB). This is a specific piece of evidence showing the problem isn't just in commercial or transport areas; it's affecting people where they live.

The authors used a mix of quantitative like sound-level meter in the field survey and qualitative like questionnaires, interviews methods. This is called a mixed-methods approach and makes their findings more robust because it combines objective data with subjective human experience.

Noise isn't just annoying; it has four distinct categories of negative health impacts. This is a great, concise list of the specific health risks I can reference later. The physiological effects like increased blood pressure are especially surprising.

This sentence identifies the main research gap the study is trying to fill. It's not just about noise, but about comparing measured noise with what people feel in medium-sized cities in the Global South. This is the core purpose of the article.