Sounding Sidewalks: Historicizing and Theorizing This Medial Zone

Sidewalks have long been a contested urban space existing between the private and public, thereby embodying conflicting sonic worlds of personal soundscaping, cultural world-building, and authority. This article theorizes and historicizes the lineage of the sidewalk as a medium of both control and resistance, addressed through an analysis of various sound technologies and techniques. Extending literature on the complex history of sidewalks as urban infrastructure, this article furthers scholarship by exploring the sounds of evolving social and political relations, the sonic environments imbued in this medial zone, and the shifting sound marks that accompany evolving urban policies.