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Just a few years after World War II, ...
... slum clearance and urban development begin as part of the fight against the widespread housing shortage. The so-called 'Finger Plan' from 1948 becomes a pioneer of modern urban planning. The idea is to create a city with housing and commerce positioned along radial roads and railways, retaining large green wedge areas right in towards the centre of the city.

New housing estates with single-family homes and council housing proliferate in the suburbs. Women now enter the labour market on a grand scale, creating a need for creches and nurseries. Schools, sporting facilities, nursing homes and hospitals are built. Central and local government creates a cradle-to-grave security net for its citizens that has never been seen before.

The swinging sixties
As the older generation is enjoying increasing material welfare, unrest is smouldering among the young. There are numerous demonstrations against nuclear weapons, NATO and the Vietnam War. In 1968 the students protest against the professorial powers-that-be at the University. Other groups, the squatters, occupy condemnable properties. They demand influence over redevelopment, housing policy, working conditions – and better playground areas.

It all culminates in 1971 with the occupation of the former military area of Bådsmandsstræde Barracks in Christianshavn, where the Free City of Christiania is established in a protest against current social norms.

Culture was largely affected by the US. Not only jeans, long hair, rock music and free love was adapted to, also festivals saw the light of day in Copenhagen.

Copenhagen today
The oldest inner city area has now become a shopping and entertainment centre that attracts people from the outskirts. There is a thriving cultural life, most recently exemplified in the large-scale commitment to Copenhagen as Cultural Capital of Europe 1996.

Today Copenhagen is under the spell of the ambitious projects connected with a new district called 'Ørestad' on the island of Amager, a metro and a fixed link to Sweden. So Christian IV's aspiration to turn the Øresund region into the top economic and cultural region of Northern Europe is in the process of coming true – only in a modern guise.