In this paper we give approximation algorithms for several proximity problems in high dimensional spaces. In particular, we give the rst Las Vegas data structure for (1 + )-nearest neighbor with polynomialspace and query time polynomialin dimension d and logn, where n is the database size. We also give a deterministic 3-approximation algorithm with similar bounds this is the rst deterministic constant factor approximation algorithm (with polynomial space) for any norm. For the closest pair problem we give a roughly n1+ time Las Vegas algorithm with approximationfactor O(1= log1= ) this is the rst Las Vegas algorithm for this problem. Finally, we show a general reduction from the furthest point problem to the nearest neighbor problem. As a corollary, we improve the running time for the (1 + )-approximate diameter problem from n2;O( 2) to n2;O( ). Our results are uni ed by the fact that their key component is a dimensionality reduction technique for Hamming spaces.