The last decade's redevelopment planning of the Carlsberg breweries shows how different perspectives from different fields came together in a strong alliance: The authorized heritage discourse directed its attention towards a few old, grand and beautiful objects made for those in power. This selective view on heritage formed a strong alliance with the economic agenda of Carlsberg's urban development project; it left a lot of space to erect a dense tissue of new buildings that could increase the property value. This alliance became reinforced when Entasis architects delivered a powerful story behind the urban plan – building dense was now presented as the most sustainable solution; The theory was that dense districts reduce the need for car traffic because people live close to work and because they can walk, bicycle or use public transportation. This stated urban ideal, however, did not restrict the urban project from including large new parking cellars, which will support car transportation. Further, the architects saw the dense city as especially suited to create what they saw as vivid urban life. The fit between the density ideal in urbanism and profit-oriented property development is not restricted to Carlsberg, but a characteristic of much contemporary urbanism, as for example, it is discussed by Thomas Sieverts. Yet, the case of Carlsberg shows particularly the extent to which the authorized way of doing cultural heritage contributes to this alliance by concentrating on a few built objects in the urban landscape, but not offering any basic resistance to the economically driven urban development.

The dense city ideal was contested several times during the development. Notably by the competition entry ‘Time Will Tell,’ which resembles a point made by geographer Tim Edensor, who has written about the role that abundant industrial sites play in contemporary society. Edensor perceives the derelict production site as a counterpart to the contemporary city, where every square metre is commodified and determined for certain functions, owners and mechanisms of exclusion. In a situation where economic forces are very decisive in city making, leftover industrial sites can prove a special value in not being programmed and steered by fiscal agendas. The entry ‘Time Will Tell’ seems to work from such a premise and thereby attempts to create a district that is outside of the fundamental conditions of capitalization and control of space.