It is in fact true that one thing that seems to separate upper-middle class whites from most everyone else is a very low tolerance for noise. It's the best reason to live in an upper-middle class white neighborhood that I know of.
In my experience, noise (less than crime) is the most pressing daily problem when you live in and very near lower-income neighborhoods: It's human noise in black neighborhoods (conversations in the street and in homes and apartments are at a ridiculously high sound level), music noise in Hispanic ones, and dog noise in white ones.
Mexican music is actually painful to listen to even at low sound volumes. It's the music that the devil is going to pipe into elevators and stores in hell. But nothing is worse than the sound of dogs barking. I can't for the life of me understand how people can become desensitized to that sound.
