The first Swedish satellite town was built in Vällingby outside Stockholm. Planningcommenced in the early 1950s and the town was inaugurated in 1954. The layout planwas drawn by City Planning Director Sven Markelius, an active member of the CIAM andone of the architects behind the UN’s New York headquarters. In Vällingby, all thecharacteristics of a city – jobs, housing and commerce – were to be represented.Inspiration was drawn from Lewis Mumford’s The Culture of Cities, translated to Swedishin 1942, as well as Patrick Abercrombie’s 1944 Greater London Plan. Vällingby wasenvisioned as a neighbourhood unit, consisting of smaller housing areas - eachcontaining a corner shop, kindergarten and playground - organised around a larger towncentre offering more sophisticated commercial, cultural and social services.Neighbourhood planning in Sweden came to include a dimension not often found in othercountries – the ambition to increase citizens’ democratic awareness. During the war, agroup of influential people had convened to discuss the attraction of Nazism and Fascism,and what methods could be used to make people more democratically aware. Their ideascame to exert great influence on post-war Swedish city planning. By means of goodplanning, citizens would be encouraged to relate to bigger primary groups and therebytake an active democratic responsibility. By offering equal housing to everybody,Vällingby was also intended to become a classless community, but despite efforts, thegap between blue-collar and white-collar workers was never fully bridged.Vällingby was a largely successful project. The town generated jobs consistent with thenumbers that had been projected, but establishment was slow and by the early 1960sonly a quarter of the inhabitants were working in the neighbourhood. Vällingby becamethe archetype for Swedish post-war city planning. The area garnered internationalattention and was visited by among others Le Corbusier.