The Sound of the City: How Urban Noise Shapes Brain and Body in LA

A talk and discussion by UCLA professors Nicholas Shapiro and Valerie Tornini

Beyond the buzz of studio lights, the din of freeways, the howls of coyotes, and the drone of leaf-blowers, one of Los Angeles’ most distinctive sounds comes from above. As the birthplace and global capital of helicopter police patrolling, LA maintains the first and largest police aviation fleet in the world, making its aerial surveillance an inescapable feature of daily life for millions of residents. This talk traces the local sonic history of that noise and asks what it means for the people living beneath it.

Drawing on ongoing research, Shapiro and Tornini move from historical analysis to the frontlines of public health science, examining how chronic exposure to police helicopter noise shapes health outcomes and educational environments across the city. The talk closes by zooming out to the biological — exploring how these noise exposures alter behavior in animal models, and how they compound with other urban stressors like extreme heat to produce cascading effects on developing bodies and minds.