Concrete City charts City West's development in Pyrmont focusing on the clash between commercial and residential interests. Controversies dealt with include the casino, the heliport, and the destruction of heritage. The film documents such community-based endeavours as the declaration of the Republic of Pyrmont, and the "Pyrmont Pieces" project, in which residents mapped out those features of the suburb which held significance for them. The film is also a critique of urban development projects that take no account of their geographical, social and architectural environment - what one Pyrmont resident describes, in the film, as the "unique shape of the land".