Sustainable development is one of the most relevant topics to deal with today. Especially in the area of urban planning it has become one of the most important questions to discuss. In Sweden we have for the last two decades seen several development projects that have set examples for sustainable and ecological living environments. In this essay we want to clarify whether sustainable and ecological living environments are going to be a norm in the future of urban planning. We have compared two development projects which have had great impact on sustainable urban planning, Bo01 in Malmö and Hammarby Sjöstad in Stockholm. These two projects have generated new innovations for a more environmental-friendly housing. We have compared their methods of working and results to a new, ongoing development project in the city of Helsingborg called H+. We have analyzed how they, compared to Bo01 and Hammarby Sjöstad, are working towards being a role model for sustainable urban development which is their goal (Stadsbyggnadsförvaltningen, 2008a:5). In our study we have reached the conclusion that in Sweden we are far from setting a norm for ecological living environments and that we need to elaborate better tools for planning and stricter demands from higher instances to reach this norm.