Docklands Dreamings Illusions of Sustainability in the Melbourne Docks Redevelopment

• Published in: Urban studies (Edinburgh, Scotland) Vol. 50; no. 11; pp. 2158 - 2177
• Main Author: Shaw, Kate
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England Sage Publications, Ltd 01.08.2013; SAGE Publications; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Australia; Criticism; Cultural sustainability; Culture; Development projects; Deviation; Docks; Ecological sustainability; Economic liberalism; Economics; Housing; Neoliberalism; Redevelopment; Special Issue Article; Sustainability; Sustainable cities; Sustainable Development; Sustainable economic development; Sustainable global economy; Urban Development; Urban policy; Victoria; Waterfronts; Australia; Melbourne Victoria Australia; Australia, Victoria, Melbourne
• ISSN: 0042-0980; 1360-063X
• DOI: 10.1177/0042098013478237

The redevelopment of Melbourne's docklands—the largest urban development project in Australia—has been the subject of various official narratives in the course of its 20-year realisation so far. Many of these have invoked aspirations—'visions' or imaginaries—of sustainability, including, variously, economic, environmental, social and cultural sustainability. Through documentary sources used to establish these narratives, this paper tracks the changes in vision against changes in the local political-economic context and examines their effects on the ground. The paper argues that, while each vision was intended to some degree to rescue the development from the failure of the preceding one, only the most recent phase represents any deviation from neoliberal development-as-usual, and this is more to do with the intensifying criticism of the project's failure to demonstrate any kind of sustainability than it is the implementation of an articulated aspiration.