Heard through the ears of the Canadian composer and music teacher R. Murray Schafer the ideal auditory community had the shape of a village. Schafer’s work with the World Soundscape Project in the 70s represent an attempt to interpret contemporary environments through musical and auditory parameters highlighting harmonious and balanced qualities while criticizing the noisy and cacophonous qualities of modern urban settings. This paper present a reaffirmation of Schafer’s central methodological claim: that environments can be analyzed through their sound, but offers considerations on the role of sound as an active component in shaping urban environments.

As urban conditions spreads globally, new scales, shapes and forms of communities appear and call for new distinctions and models in the study and representation of sonic environments. Particularly so, since urban environments are increasingly musicalized through electro acoustic equipment installed in shops, shopping streets, transit areas etc. Urban noise no longer acts only as disturbance, but also structure and shape the places and spaces in which urban life enfold.

Based on research done in Japanese shopping streets and in Copenhagen the paper presents some terminologies for mapping urban environments through its sonic configuration. Such probing into the practices of acoustic territorialisation may direct attention to some of the conflicting and disharmonious interests defining public inclusive domains. The paper investigates the concept of urban noise not only as a disturbing and potentially unhealthy influence, but also as a condition for interaction, creativity and inclusiveness and makes three propositions for a theory of urban sonic environments.