This volume on urban planning within the book series 'Nordic World' outlines the preconditions, the development, the challenges and the actual appearances of the changing welfare city. From solidarity to competition, from green-field development to transformation of already urbanised areas - and from its utilitarian outset over its crisis to the differentiated models in the 1980s and the flexicurity models in the 1990s on to today. The current competitive welfare city is more likely to be described as an urban landscape characterised by, on the one hand, a division of functions, and on the other by mutual competition. The role of the state has been minimized, turning the municipalities into the new major agents in attracting taxpayers and providing goods - both by means of urban planning.