As expert representatives from various sectors (including energy, green job creation and consumption) have been predicting in droves lately, the bright spot in the current global economic crisis may be the opportunity that it provides for long-awaited growth in forward-thinking, more sustainable policies and innovation.

Forget the town hall with the scripted questions, forget the one minute responses and the tight rules that make the debates so formal and boring, loosen up guys, and while you are relaxed and ready to rumble, how about answering some questions from the TreeHugger Team. No softballs here.

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We often write in TreeHugger about the importance of cities and of neighborhoods, about new urbanist designs that work like cities used to; Mark Oppenheimer writes in the New York Times' real estate magazine a wonderful article entitled "It's a wonderful block"- His own West Rock Avenue in New Haven, Connecticut....

Photo by Vitalyzator.

crazy graph is presented for each city. More little triangles near the bullseye means higher score.

Coupe Bizzare cutting hair in the street

It was supposed to be a big party for World Car-Free Day. "According to the same guys that ticket cyclists for biking the wrong way down one-way streets, a bicycle is a “vehicle”. Thanks to this categorization, you can legally transform any parking spot into a park by feeding the meter and parking your “vehicle” (i.e. your bike) there instead - don’t forget to display your receipt under your “windshield”....

It's the London Design Festival and TreeHuggers will be crawling all over the city looking for the best of the lot to bring to you daily for the next week. Crawling is the operative word with exhibits and events and lectures everywhere; night and day.

Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved. Photo by Joel Olives

150,000 honey bees descend and ascend in central Tokyo, and generally fly about. So, OK, I admit it, no horror story or freak-of-nature side effect of global warming here, just a fascinating example of grow local, eat local in the middle of the most populous agglomeration in the world.