Copenhagen’s latest reinvention — there have been a number through the centuries — started in earnest when an international architectural competition was announced in 1994 to develop Orestad, then an empty strip of land about 600 meters, or 2,000 feet, wide and 5 kilometers, or 3.1 miles, long in the flatlands between the southern fringe of the capital and its international airport. A plan submitted by Arkki, a Finnish studio, was selected.

There was also a synergy to be tapped: in 1995, construction started on a combined road and rail bridge-tunnel to connect Copenhagen with the Swedish city of Malmo across the strait. The link, the longest such structure in Europe, gave the Danish capital the chance to enlarge its sphere of economic influence to embrace Malmo, a prosperous city of just over 300,000 people.

The link opened in 2000 and Orestad is ideally situated to benefit, as it straddles the highway that connects Jutland, the peninsula on which mainland Denmark sits, to Stockholm via Malmo.

Essentially, the City and Port Authority had two main goals: getting enterprises to set up in the city instead of on the outer fringe of Copenhagen — or abroad — and encouraging young families to stay in Copenhagen rather than buying a home in the distant outskirts.

Businesses have moved into Orestad, but the plan has not yet proved hugely successful in attracting new residents, though the wider malaise of the Danish property sector is undoubtedly a key factor: average real estate prices in Denmark have dropped about 15 percent since 2007, when the market was at its peak.

According to research provided by Danish Homes, a real estate agency, the average cost of a two-bedroom apartment of 70 square meters, or 750 square feet, in Orestad is around 2.1 million Danish kroner, or about $373,000. This compares with, for instance, 1.5 million kroner for a two-room unit of a similar size in Norrebro, a mainly working-class district to the north of the historic city center that is in the process of gentrifying.

Planned suburbs are nothing new in Copenhagen. The quarters of Christianshavn and Frederiksstad were built in the 17th and 18th centuries, respectively, following plans to expand the city into new areas. Both districts are now regarded as “natural” parts of Copenhagen, even though developers originally found it difficult to attract new residents.