This message is fast regaining currency in our search for better ways of living, and since her death in 2006 people started celebrating her legacy through direct action, with people getting out of their cars, exploring their neighbourhoods and meeting their neighbours.

These Jane's Walks are held annually on the first weekend of May each year, on Jacobs' birthday. The first walks in the UK were held in 2011 in Colchester, and this year Hereford and London are taking part too in this worldwide social weekend.

Given London's diverse character, scale, complexity and sheer randomness, we can expect any and every kind of walk to happen! The one fixed point will be a get-together at the Hackney Empire Theatre on Sunday 6th May at 6.00pm.

So how can you get involved? Well, you might like to lead a walk, go on a walk, or walk on your own. You can walk anytime on the weekend of 5th and 6th May or near this date. If you can make it to the Hackney Empire on Sunday as well to share your experience, then that will be wonderful. Free tickets can be obtained on eventbrite here http://janeswalkhackneyempire.eventbrite.co.uk/ (maximum 80 people).

If you are thinking of organising a walk or going on one, visit the official Jane's Walk site for further information http://janeswalk.net/cities/landing/category/london_uk/ and follow @JanesWalkLondon on Twitter.

And, if you would like people to join you, please send details of your walk to me (david@vitalkingston.org) or Liane (liane.hartley@mendlondon.org.uk) at those email addresses and we will add your walk to the Jane's Walk London online pin map.

Jane's Walk is just around the corner and this year London is participating for the first time, but who wants to get involved and why? To fully understand you have to know a bit about Jane Jacobs. 

What kind of walks are Jane's Walks?

As long as you respect the principles of Jane's Walk, i.e. that they must be free of charge and that they honour the legacy and ideas of Jane Jacobs, then they can be almost anything. Most walks are a form or walking tour, but you might want to make a video, or capture a moment or a scene from London life, or perhaps make an art work or a new discovery, or engage in a form of psychogeography. You may wish to chronicle something about London that inspires you, or disturbs you.. It's your call.

Make a Poster, Presentation or Submit a Picture or Story

Come along to the Hackney Empire and meet the other organisers and share your experience in a poster session / open mic sharing session. Audio visual equipment will be available if you want to use PowerPoint or show a clip, and there will be plenty of white space on the walls. This will be a warm and friendly get-together in an iconic part of London. All the details are here on eventbrite for you to book - http://janeswalkhackneyempire.eventbrite.co.uk/

If you can't make it to the get-together, just email your contribution in and we will be sure to include it on a website built to capture all the stories and contributions from the weekend. You can see photos and press clippings from past Jane's Walks here http://janeswalk.net/about/press

Jane's Walk takes place on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th May. If you are a Londoner, then it's for you too.

On 30th March Surbiton Business Community working with RBK and local community organisations including Vital Kingston, submitted a bid for a 'Portas Pilot'. 

Following on from the publication of the report on town centres led by Mary Portas, the retail guru, the Portas Pilots schemes offer money to enable communities to create town teams to manage the upgrading of high street offerings to make them successful into the future.

Every Portas Pilot bid had to have a video clip along with it, and you can see Surbiton's here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9bpFpKJ4-w

A lot of really good things will come out of the Portas Pilot if successful and Vital Kingston is 100% behind it, so please can you support the bid by 'liking' the YouTube clip?

Thank you very much and good luck Surbiton!

As you know, VK is about to organise another Jane's Walk to give our community a chance to explore our urban space and raise awareness about where we live, and how it can be improved.

According to urbanist Jeroen Beekman's Pop-Up City blog, this is a classic act of 'psychogrograhy'.  Psychgeography is defined as "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals", a definition originating from avant-gardist's in the late 50's, and revived during the 1968 student riots. 

Contemporary British proponants of psychogography include Iain Sinclair ('Lights Out for the City'), Will Self ('Psychogeography'), and the Director of 'Mend', Liane Hartley.

Beekman says that in 2012 psychogeography will be a hot topic.  VK would concur.  But it is not an elite sport.  In it's purist form it is no more or less than the art of strolling, or just about anything that gets pedestrians off their predictable paths and leads them to a new awareness of the urban landscape.