I took a taxi the other day and the driver and I fell into an argument.

It was one of those clenched teeth, sullen stand-offs.

In 25 years here I don't think I have ever met a cabbie with whom I didn't get on. Actually I lie. I don't know if he still works the circuit but he looked like a tarantula. I swear he had hair on the palms of his hands. I grew to hate him quietly, not because of the way he looked but because he grunted rather than spoke and was so negative he made Eyeyore look like a party animal.

But all the others - the regulars like Don and Tai and Sally and Bernie and the ones with whom I have whiled away countless jouneys whose names I don't know - have always been full of advice and encouragement or just useful chat. Most of them feel that for all its faults they are still ambassadors for the town.

But this one was tarantula's wife.

To start with, I wasn't in the best of moods. I had just arrived in Brighton by train. I love trains but I am not keen on Railtrack's current bargain with the British people. Which you can sum up thus: Either you're late or we kill you. But my mood wasn't the reason I argued.

It started with the trains. She'd never been on one in her life. She never went anywhere she couldn't drive. I said, with people talking about the floods and global warming and worrying about the effects of car exhaust on the climate and the general agreement that there must be less traffic congestion in town, she probably might not be able to drive at will as the next decade plots its way to a better public transport system and less car use.

I said it gently. But she wasn't going to argue about that. Her tack was several notches more aggressive.

No one could possibly even want to go into the centre of Brighton, she said. There was no decent shopping, it was full of yobs and anyway the shops were better in Eastbourne.

We now had our own version of global warming going on in the cab. No floods but the temperature was beginning to rise well beyond normal.

Now at this moment we were driving through the usual Saturday afternoon shop-till-you-drop frenzy and there seemed to be half the population of Sussex in town, clearly not all of them yobs. In fact, 99.9% of them hard-working people spending their hard-earned gains.

She ploughed on. Nothing has improved in the town over the last ten years, it's all gone downhill and it's heading for the dogs.

By now I was grinding my teeth. But through the rising tide of annoyance - after all this is a place I love - I felt really sad. Clearly things have improved.

Unemployment is down. Wages are still not good enough, but over the last years they have risen, and the minimum wage is making a difference.

The seafront is light years away from what it was ten years ago. There is more inward investment ... blah blah blah .... £47m for the New Deal for communities in East Brighton .... Blah, blah .... I could hear my list of palpable achievements by businesses, the council and community groups fading into the background as it made no impact on her. I know, lists never do. But I was desperate to find one thing that she would agree had improved. I failed.

I realised that as towns change people often feel left behind. They cannot see the effect of increased prosperity on their own lives.

The growth of youthful businesses, the increase in tourist income, the boom in the North Laine and the mainstream stores in Churchill Square and Western Road are transforming the economy.

Hove is buzzing like it never has with shops and businesses. But still this driver, earning her living from this economic upturn, feels rejected by the town she works in. And in turn she has rejected it.

And if we don't tackle things like street nuisance - the fighting, the begging, the graffiti, the litter - then she and people like her probably always will.

The problems will always mask the achievements. But I honestly can't see any hope of solving them if we reject the route of creating an inclusive prosperity and increasing investment in business in the town.

That is the only guarantee for the future, as much for her business as for the next generation who are still in school.