Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) was an urbanist and activist whose writings championed a community-based approach to city building. She had no formal training as a planner, and yet her book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1961 introduced ground-breaking ideas about how cities function, evolve and fail, that should be common sense to architects, planners, and politicians but is it? "Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody." Jane Jacobs and us listen to House sparrows Kingston town centre- my home town of more than 40 years; who does it belong to? Who decides if it should be a 'concretopia'? Certain species reach a tipping point where they can no longer subsist; How can we ensure that valuable natural assets will be retained in major new developments? The last 27 years; this district has been my home but now it is fast becoming a dormitory Towards the end of