I generally appreciate my quiet house which is so largely due to good windows.
Oddly though, some noise I have no trouble with and actually like for sleep purposes.
When there’s a grand cacophony of frogs, crickets, and cicadas night, it puts me to sleep pretty fast. Have to open the windows for that one.
Probably most odd is when I visit family on vacation I have no trouble w/their kids playing loudly. I’ve napped right through it at times. However, if I had a playground near my house, it’d bother me (but the windows would preclude that anyway). I’m obviously biased towards “my own”.
At a good distance, I like the sound of lawnmowers and trains. Has to be far enough away to be fairly “soft”. About a quarter mile for a single lawnmower and a good 2-3 miles for trains.
Perpetual city noise is nothing to sleep to for me. Never had much occassion to do so, but I was 10 floors up in Chinatown NYC once, and it wasn’t high enough. Heard every dumpster lift at 4 in the morning. It was an improvement though over my first night in NYC, which was at ground level by the battery - fish carts running over cobblestones over and over. Generally terrible but served as a good alarm clock.
I lived for a few months across the road from a freight yard. Not much sleep the first week or so, then I wouldn’t even hear the racket. Amazing what you can get used to.