Basel, Paris, Tokyo, Copenhagen, Zurich – Christine Grant spent six months to travel the globe and to learn from different bike meccas how to transform a city to meet the needs of the 21st century: low on carbon, high on physical activity, low on noise and danger, high on fun and style. The output of this trip: ten lessons which are worth to take a closer look at.

As coastal urban areas continue to grow, tourism is an important and growing economical factor, and nature and natural resources are to be protected, this leads to new challenges: How to safeguard drinking water availability and quality? How to manage riverine and coastal floods? How to design new urban areas and how to retrofit existing ones? At 3rd International BaltCICA Conference cities and regions presented their solutions and approaches for these challenges.

The crisis in Greece does not only lead to unemployment. As the German TV magazine auslandsjournal reported many young Greeks bethink of their roots. According to the report about 40.000 young Greeks leave the bigger cities and go back to the places where they grew up.

“Is the Eurozone crisis helping Europe’s economies to reform?” asks debatingeurope.eu and spoke to Finland’s Minister for Europe and Foreign Trade, Alexander Stubb, to ask him about the importance of market pressure on economic reform.

Imagine you would go to the next parking lot in your town to get some fresh fruits or walk to the closest civic building to help yourself with some herbs and succulent greens. In the British mill town of Todmorden this is not a fantasy. Thanks to the Incredible Edible program Todmorden not only grows its own vegetables, improved civic life and reduced crime are witnessed results as well.

Murmansk may not be the most beautiful town but it definately has character as the time lapse video „Murmansk in motion“ by Alexander Bergan shows. The city lights and the purple night sky plunges the town in an exotic light. Ice and snow, busy streets, cranes that seem to dance to the sound of the vibrating city.

"We Have to Move Away from a Europe of Small Minds", stated the Czech Foreign Minister Karl Fürst zu Schwarzenberg in an interview with the German news magazine SPIEGEL. Schwarzenberg, leader of the center-right TOP 09 party, says that Central Europe has no clear borders. He welcomes the EU membership of Croatia and supports the accession of the entire western Balkan.

A new book argues that America's Rust Belt cities could play a central role in a greener, low-carbon, relocalized future. Small cities offer many assets for sustainable living not shared by their big city or small town counterparts: population density, nearby farmland, and manufacturing infrastructure and workforce skills that can be repurposed for the production of renewable-energy technology.

The European Young Innovators Forum announced the Innotour USA 2012. From 12th to 22nd of February 2012 the Forum invites young Europeans to apply by 5th of January! The tours organizers see this as an opportunity to address the dual challenges of Europe’s innovation deficit and youth unemployment.

„There are many networks in the world but we believe in ours“, with these optimistic and strong words Rita Merca, chairwoman of the board opened the annual conference of the Innovation Circle Network in Jurmala / Latvia. “We want to raise important questions and figure out what steps should be taken to overcome difficulties”, these high demands were the tasks for the next two days.