By Stephen Burton | Featuring Jules, Townsville Resident and Curator of “Townsville Streets” on Instagram
There is often a tension in urban design between “Policy” and “People.” Policy, driven by engineering standards, often dictates that trees are a risk. They drop leaves, they interact with pipes, and they might fall in a cyclone. From a purely asset-management perspective, the safest street is a concrete street.
But the citizens of our cities hold a powerful veto card: usage.
In this episode of The Placemakers, I spoke with Jules, Townsville Resident and Curator of “Townsville Streets” on Instagram, about how the harsh reality of the tropical climate and the refusal of citizens to endure it - and how it is forcing a fundamental shift in urban policy.
🎧 Listen to the Episode
We explore the full methodology in this interview.
📄 Accessibility & Reference
Prefer to read? Download the full word-for-word transcript of this interview.
In the dry tropics of Townsville, the feedback loop from citizens is immediate and physical.
“Heat is the biggest factor we have to deal with,” Jules explains. It’s not just the sun; it’s the radiated heat bouncing off the road and buildings.
For a long time, standard policy prioritized clear zones and low-maintenance paving. But the result was a ghost town.
“Before, people would rush from point A to point B to get out of the sun,” Jules recalls.
This is the Citizen Veto. When an environment is hostile, people disengage. They stay in their cars. They go to air-conditioned malls. The “safe” engineering policy resulted in a failed public place.
“If a person isn’t physically comfortable… they won’t stay,” Jules says. “You can have the most beautiful design in the world, but if it’s a heat island, it’s a failure”.
To win the citizens back, the policy had to change. The Council had to pivot from viewing trees as “aesthetic ornaments” (which are optional) to viewing them as “solutions to a problem.”
“We’ve moved away from the idea of just planting small ornamental trees to really focusing on large, broad-canopy shade trees,” Jules notes.
This shift required internal advocacy to rewrite the rules on underground services. Traditionally, engineers viewed root systems as threats to pipes.
“We’ve had to shift that mindset to see trees as critical infrastructure,” Jules explains. “Just like a stormwater pipe or a light pole, a tree performs a function. It cools the city… it improves mental health”.
By framing shade as a functional necessity for the citizen, rather than a decoration, the policy barriers regarding root intrusion and cyclone risk could be negotiated using engineering solutions like structural soil cells and root barriers.
When policy aligns with human need, the citizens return. The revitalisation of Flinders Street focused on widening footpaths and creating “Cool Corridors” - dropping the street temperature by a few degrees to make walking viable.
The result was an immediate change in citizen behaviour.
“Now, you see people sitting on the benches, eating lunch under the trees,” Jules observes. “It’s also changed the perception of the CBD… it’s becoming a destination again”.
The lesson for Placemakers? You cannot design against the human condition. If your policy conflicts with human comfort, the citizens will always win - by leaving.
Share
View all articles
