The Right to Quiet Enjoyment and Urban Planning Regulation: The Evolution of Urban Noise Management in the City of São Paulo (1994–2026)

Abstract

Noise pollution has emerged as an urban challenge of growing scholarly and policy significance, with consequences that extend well beyond individual discomfort to encompass population health, rest, and collective quality of life. This article examines the governance logics underpinning urban noise regulation in the city of São Paulo through a systematic analysis of the municipal regulatory framework, investigating the degree to which the framework is internally coherent — and the implications of its (in)coherence for the institutional transition pathways currently underway. The research draws on a triangulated methodology combining policy analysis of the normative trajectory (1994–2026), legal doctrine and jurisprudence, and qualitative primary sources: informative interviews with legislators, public administrators, technical experts, and legal practitioners, complemented by a systematic review of journalistic coverage. The article contends that the legal framework has evolved in a broadly consistent direction — from neighborhood nuisance law to the recognition of noise as a public health determinant, and from public health to a mandate for preventive territorial planning — yet that this normative evolution preceded, by several decades, the development of the technical knowledge and institutional capacity required to operationalize it.