Europe

One country stands out in Europe in surpassing the greenhouse gas emission reductions required by the Kyoto Protocol - Sweden. While it used several environmental technologies to achieve those reductions, experts give credit to its carbon tax.

Harald Bodenschatz calls for a radical shift in the urban planning discourse when he claims for a revitalization not only of the downtown, but of the district centers and of suburbia itself, which should be made denser and more valuable.

Streetfilms looks at the livable streets movement in Paris and a twice-weekly "critical mass" over roller skaters that often brings crowds of thousands.

Party organizers in Prague have set up a monthly party that takes place on one of the city's streetcars as it drives through town.

Responding to the growing backslash against cell phone chatter, the city of Graz, Austria has banned cell phone use on its public transit system.

A massive dam project in Turkey that would flood historic areas and displace 50,000 people is losing international support, as officials in Germany threaten to pull out of the project -- often called a smaller version of China's Three Gorges Dam.

The German city of Bremen has lessons to teach North American cities about sustainable transportation, according to this article from The Toronto Star.

142 years after it was first proposed and with $235 million spent with nothing to show for it, the unrealized link between Sicily and the Italian mainland might be planning at its worst.

Former Russian president Vladimir Putin has announced his intentions to propose that Russia and the United States move forward with plans from the early 20th century to build a 64-mile tunnel between the two countries.

Operation "Rialto" will lift some Venice buildings up to 3.3 feet in an effort to avoid the negative implications of sea level rise.

With more and more energy-efficient homes being built and environmentally conscious industry sited in the city, Freiburg, Germany may be one of the greenest cities in the world.

The planning process has taken a little longer than expected for a Chinese investor looking to create Germany's first Chinatown.

Sprawl around Budapest has created a major smog problem for the Hungarian capital.

A proposal to stack millions of concrete blocks containing ashes of the deceased in a gigantic pyramid in Germany is attracting proposals from architects -- and some skepticism.

In order to raise money to provide much-needed housing for its soldiers, the Russian Army has plans to auction of millions of dollars worth of property -- from huge mansions to entire towns.

The machine-city envisioned by Le Corbusier, and made into practice in decades of modernist bureaucracy, has ultimately produced, according to Simon Richards' essay, an antisocial environment, against which urban planning seems to be now reacting.

Organized crime has taken over Naples' municipal waste disposal -- and the resulting, uncontrolled trash heaps are causing illness, ruining regional agriculture, and contributing to an atmosphere of ungovernability.

With available landspace running low, a 1-million square-meter underground development is being planned in Amsterdam.

A train capable of reaching speeds of 224 mph has been unveiled in France.

A group of French academics have written an open letter decrying the latest in a long string of plans to deal with the working-class Parisian suburbs, which saw riots in 2005.