ABSTRACT
I’ve always said that whether or not Docklands is a success…will be… dependent on whether the people actually living in Docklands, the old and the new, have assumed ownership, if not authorship, of what exists. If they do, on balance, it could be registered as a substantive success. If they do not assume at least partial ownership, if they continue to resent what has happened and oppose its on-going development-then it will have been a social failure. (Reg Ward, January 1998)
[The development] hasn’t produced the regeneration…that we would certainly have been looking for, or I think what in the long term [is best]. …I think in the future when somebody… writes a book about Docklands I think they will say what a terrible waste it all was and…clearly I believe that they would be right. It was just a wasted opportunity, so much could have been achieved and wasn’t and…so much was achieved that should not have been achieved…. It’s a tragedy really. Docklands is a tragedy-the Isle of Dogs in particular. (Ted Johns, community activist, Isle of Dogs)
The preceding chapters have described the regeneration of the Isle of Dogs in London’s Docklands through the words and experiences of those involved in shaping the development, those who moved to the area because of it and those who sought to oppose it, and over a period of time how ordinary Island residents came to accommodate, if not accept it. However, the account would not be complete without a discussion of the broader structural factors that impinged on the development process, not only on the poor and powerless, but on the financiers and affluent residents too. This final chapter, therefore, moves to a different level of analysis and, drawing explicitly on the macro processes that provided the context within which the development occurred, assesses to what extent the development was a “success” or a wasted opportunity and what lessons might be derived from “the Docklands experiment” (DCC 1990) for future urban regeneration. These questions are simply phrased, but the solutions to them are very complex indeed.
