Reclaiming Docklands: a six-part series – Part 2

Part 2: Narratives lost: whose stories shape Docklands now?

Walk through Docklands and you’ll see what was meant to be a world-class waterfront precinct: wide boulevards, glistening towers, and public spaces designed to impress. But what’s harder to see is who the place is for.

This was once a neighbourhood brimming with promise: a blank canvas ready to be filled with the stories of residents, artists, traders, and families. And yet, over time, those stories have been pushed to the margins.

Ask locals today, and many will tell you: Docklands doesn’t lack people or passion. It lacks voice. It lacks the mechanisms to protect the community’s memory, its culture, and its agency in shaping the future.

We see it in the way public spaces are programmed, or more often, neglected. In how planning decisions are framed through economic benefit rather than community wellbeing. And most clearly, we see it in developments like the Marvel Stadium expansion, where a precinct originally designed for liveability and creativity is being further redefined to serve entertainment and corporate interests.

This is not just a concern about disruption. It’s about identity.

Docklands has always been more than just high-rises and harbour views. It carries the legacy of a working port, the stories of migrant communities, and the deep presence of Aboriginal custodianship along the Birrarung. And in more recent years, it’s been shaped by the everyday lives of residents who built businesses, held festivals, raised children, and showed up for each other during the hardest days of the pandemic.

But where are those stories reflected now?

Too often, community storytelling is treated as ornamental; something to paint onto a wall or bury in a brochure. But in reality, it’s the heart of a place. Without it, a neighbourhood becomes vulnerable to being reshaped in the image of those with power, rather than those with presence.

This is why so many in Docklands feel unseen. When new plans are launched without consultation, when cultural infrastructure is sidelined, when the stories that define us are edited out of our future – it becomes harder to feel like this is a place we belong to, let alone one we’re shaping. And no, it’s not a difficult community to consult with, it’s a community that has lost trust.

I know that, because Docklands is still full of storytellers.

They’re running cafés and community groups. They’re raising their kids in apartments with no playgrounds nearby and making do with what they have. They’re creating art, challenging the status quo, and remembering what this place once promised to be. The challenge isn’t a lack of story: it’s a lack of platform.

What’s your story? Get in touch on Instagram (@thejamalhakim), follow and share.

As we continue this series, the next article will explore how those platforms were dismantled. From the loss of the Docklands Stakeholder Group to the hollowin-out of public participation, we’ll look at how the mechanisms of community input have been weakened, and importantly: what we can do to restore them.

Because stories are more than memory. They are power. And it’s time Docklands reclaimed its own. •