Artist Tyree Guyton has waged a personal war on urban blight, transforming a broken down neighbourhood on Detroit’s East Side street into a living art gallery.

Geraldine Royds looks at The Heidelberg Project. 

Prior to becoming an artist, Tyree Guyton worked as a firefighter, an autoworker and served in the army. Following his stint in the military, Tyree came back to his childhood neighbourhood and was astonished to see that it look like a bombsite.  The area had begun to deteriorate after the 1967 riots in Detroit and seventy five percent of the locals were now on the poverty line. Tyree began The Heidelberg Project partly as a political protest.

We can all think of things we might enjoy in this lifetime but can also feel we don’t really deserve them, or suspect they're beyond us. Result? Feelings of frustration and inadequacy. Phil Becque explains why he practises Nichiren Buddhism

Customers and shopkeepers in India's capital will soon face jail sentence or stiff fine for using polythene bags writes Julia Stephenson

Fed up with the devastating effects of plastic refuse in their city, Delhi is in the process of banning plastic bags. Meanwhile other countries and cities as diverse as Rwanda, Zanzibar, Los Melbourne, China, Israel and Los Angeles have already banned plastic bags - or are in the process of charging for them, with a view to eventually banning them for good.  

Psychologist Bruce Wampold created shockwaves when his research revealed that the success of therapeutic techniques was less than 1%.

What mattered was whether or not the client trusted the therapist.  Oliver Burkeman explores the implications of this for self-help systems that insist they can change your life.

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I have a photograph of myself, aged 7, posing suggestively against the wall in my Grannie's hotel room in the Chelsea Cloisters, wearing her high heels, with a drink in one hand and a long cigarette holder in the other.

I wish I'd known then how prophetic this photograph would be in my own future battle to overcome my addictions; but then, as a child following the role-models in my young life, how could I tell which personality aspects were admirable, trustworthy and life-affirming - and which not?

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Things are looking pretty gloomy financially.  But faced with great challenges it is both necessary and possible to generate hope, explains Daisaku Ikeda

Buddhism teaches that the same power that moves the universe exists within our lives. Each individual has immense potential, and a great change in the inner dimension of one individual’s life has the power to touch the lives of others and transform society.  When we change our inner determination, everything begins to move in a new direction. 

Hope, in this sense, is a decision.