Most places that I've lived in the city have been pretty quiet, or at least in terms of hearing your neighbors. My last apartment, in the Mission, was almost sound-proof in that I almost never heard my neighbor and only occasionally heard the people downstairs.

This isn't true of my new apartment, which is why it was a little disconcerting to have to spend the night hearing my upstairs neighbors get into a loud argument and then a loud bout of make-up sex.