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In its 2017 New Urban Agenda, the United Nations lists almost 200 declarations and implementation plans for creating sustainable and equitable cities, towns and settlements, yet the word ‘history’ is mentioned only once – to describe our own times as a critical juncture – a somewhat detached approach to problems with great time depth. Historical archaeology provides a unique toolbox for understanding urban through-lines, scientifically and theoretically. Case studies of Swedish cities, some many centuries old, describe the processes through which they were founded, transformed through time, and emerged differently in new contexts. Today, some have emerged as places not unlike the aspirational declarations of the New Urban Agenda. Yet most of these cities have few roots in equity and sustainability. Many systematically promoted less equality, even abject misery, focusing on the relatively short-term harvest of regional and local resources and labour, or for border security, population domination, and state and elite control. Many were ‘reinvented’ over the centuries – adjusting to new iterations of the same founding principles. Using select historical and modern case studies, we trace how relationships between various classes of hinterland and urban dwellers, influencers, and government officials struggled through time over the meaning and quality of urban life.