The Gold Coast City is Australia's fourth largest touristed city. This paper is a case study of placemaking, 'tourism urbanisation' and its counterpart 'community urbanisation', on the Southport Spit; the last remnant of undeveloped public open space in the Gold Coast City. In touristed cities like the Gold Coast histories of tourism urbanisation predominate and other placemaking histories are largely marginalised or erased. We seek to address this outcome by relating a story of community urbanisation on the Southport Spit, a story that emerged because of tourism urbanisation. The histories related demonstrate that within an overarching, dominant urbanisation discourse local everyday placemaking practices flourish and have effect. The paper concludes with possibilities for recognising and acknowledging these other practices of urbanisation.