Europe

The first new bridge over Venice's Grand Canal in 70 years will open next month, but no no fanfare and without ceremony. Locals are calling off events to protest the bridge's many delays and cost overruns.

Technologie Alpine de Sécurité creates gas-powered avalanche control systems. The blog Pruned shows pictures of the system installed at Val Thorens, France.

Faced with a significant decline in tourism, Rome's mayor dreams of building a theme park right next to the real thing depicting life in ancient Rome.

A new district rises on the decommissioned Ypenburg Nato airfield in the Netherlands. Master planners Rapp & Rapp worked with other architects and developers to create a cohesive whole with slight variations, a “conditioning of difference."

The only modern building in Rome's historic center, a Richard Meier designed museum, is considered offensive enough that it may not last in its current form.

The American trend of "fractional ownership", a real estate concept in which a number of investors own fractions of vacation homes, has moved to Europe.

Originally a Stalinist program called 'Young Pioneers', the tradition of the Children's Railway is being revived in Budapest.

In order to save an ancient kingdom that was flooded by a reservoir in the 1950s, officials in Bulgaria will build a €100 million wall around the submerged monument.

A Vancouver company is importing Dutch city bicycles, and the relaxed commuting lifestyle that goes with them.

A small town in Germany is demonstrating that a strategy of distributed, renewable and locally-controlled energy production can not only be Earth-friendly but profitable.

One of the world's largest urban renewal projects is about to break ground in the Kartal area of Istanbul, and every aspect of the new neighborhood is designed by a star architect. The Wall St. Journal reports on the new "city-building industry".

The annual transformation of riverbanks to beaches has begun in Paris, where the River Seine becomes a widely visited outdoor public space known as Paris Plages.

Four years after it hosted the Summer Olympics, Athens is questioning whether the $15 billion investment in venues that now largely sit unused was really worth it.

Incidents of violence and vandalism highlight a rising tide of local opposition to teh construction of new mosques in Germany.

Belfast developers plan on turning a Victorian-era jail into a tourist attraction, hotel, and art gallery. Her Majesty’s Prison Belfast closed in 1996, and is a symbol of The Troubles, the long struggle in Northern Ireland for Irish independence.

Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë has proposed abandoning the city's long-held building height restriction of 37 meters, citing the city's need to grow.

With tourist season in full effect, the Czech city of Prague is hoping to clean up its notoriously dirty streets with a new ban on littering and urinating in public places.

Bohmte, Germany is following the lead of an EU program called "Shared Space", which recommends that cities remove traffic signals and find ways to encourage cars to share their space with pedestrians and bicyclists.

Following on the success of its bike-sharing system, Paris is planning to unveil a citywide green car-sharing system.

An Italian city planner visits San Diego to analyze sprawl-fighting techniques first-hand.