Age letter writer laments nisunderstanding of how to be 'cool'

Altona’s Jennifer Williams understands the dynamic of creating cool urban spaces by planting trees and in today’s Age decries the political habit of allowing the creation of crowded subdivisions the prohibit the creation richly treed areas.

She wrote – “Design for the heat”:

 

The federal government's proposal to green our cities to protect people from the heat island effect is ambitious (The Age, 18/1). Every day, developers bulldoze houses with gardens in my area to make way for multiple-unit developments that consume most of the land, leaving no room for substantial trees to cool the buildings. Politicians are kidding themselves if they think a few street trees will cool suburbia sufficiently to protect the population from heat stress. We need to design for the heat and stop replacing earth with concrete.