ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the legal and institutional changes of the Danish planning system, including changes in scope, planning tools and the role of actors at different levels made especially in the period from 1990 to 2010. It also focuses on the discussions and discourses emerging from these changes. The Danish case demonstrates the evolution of a planning system from a traditional, top-down coordinated land-use system to a bottom-up oriented system, where values such as stability and logic are replaced by dynamics and individualism. The development of the Danish planning system took place in light of the urbanization and the considerable urban sprawl that followed the period of economic reconstruction after World War II. Thus, the primary focus of the planning system was to delimit and manage this process of urban growth and to ensure that coherent urban development took place not only at local and municipal levels but also at regional and national levels.
