But while all the attention has focused on the fledgling suburb's shortcomings, Docklands has quietly become one of the nation's economic engine rooms.

A new report by the Grattan Institute, Mapping Australia’s economy: cities as engines of prosperity, identifies Docklands as second only to Perth's central business district in terms of wealth generation.

Docklands employees – more than half of whom work in finance and insurance – generate an average $103 worth of goods and services for every hour worked. The average for the entire Melbourne city-wide area was $53 an hour.

The figures, based on an analysis of the last Census and the Bureau of Statistics' National Accounts, found a worker in Perth's mining-focused CBD generates $124 an hour.

One of the report's co-authors, Paul Donegan, said Docklands had allowed Melbourne's CBD to stretch out, providing room for sprawling new office complexes still closely linked to the city centre.

He said while there was not enough evidence to make a thorough comparison, this land availability was likely a factor in Melbourne becoming a credible competitor to Sydney's economic activity. "That would have been laughable 20 years ago," he said.

In recent years banks including ANZ and NAB, as well as insurers AXA and Medibank Private, have moved to Docklands (as has Fairfax Media, on its Spencer Street fringe), and more than half of Docklands' employees are classified managers or professionals.

The report also reveals what Mr Donegan said was "a great reshaping of Australia's economic geography". In 1901, one in three jobs was in agriculture, forestry, fishing or mining. After World War II, manufacturing rose to become Australia's dominant industry, employing a quarter of the workforce. By 2011, the report said 78 per cent of the workforce provided services of one form or another.

Michael Barlow, a director of planning and property consultants Urbis, was heavily involved in the creation of Docklands in the 1990s.

"I've thought for years and years that no one is prepared to give Docklands a chance," he said. "But a new suburb always takes time ... you need to give it 30 years before you judge it."

He said that while many had developed a very negative view of Docklands – "it is right on the water so it's always going to be windy" – some could now see a brighter future.

Among them is Chris Barrett, restaurant manager of Bar Nacional. It opened in Collins Street in September, 2013, and its staff see firsthand each morning the surge of workers to Docklands.

"We open quite early in the morning and we're here until 10pm, so we see it all in the morning, and you see the reverse waves from 4pm," he said.

When he tells friends he works in Docklands "there is a little bit of a snicker there", because of the area's reputation. "But awareness that something is happening here is growing," he said.