which is spearheading our bid for city status, updates you on the campaign

Sometime back at the Place To Be we made a list of all the areas in Brighton and Hove you could say that you lived in, from Portslade to Woodingdean and Stanmer to Kemp Town.

From this emerged 40 or so villages, not to mention, of course, all the bits of Brighton and Hove that you couldn't name. But there are definitely a substantial number of places that have a strong geographical community identity. So then we started to contact them all. And it's amazing what you find when you look.

Last week it was the second Community Festival in Poets Corner and West Hove. What a revelation. The area is nothing like Hove as she is, unfairly, talked about in myth.

You know what I mean. People think of Hove as a standard poodle in a tartan dog jacket rather than a friendly Mutley, affectionately nipping at your heels.

In popular perception, Hove is the Regency seafront, the posh and quieter end of the whole town, a relaxed, even elderly, place where the relatively well-off middle classes and their children and grandchildren gambol in the ample gardens of solid square houses on wide streets stretching down to the sea. Well there is plenty of that, but the picture is only partial.

It ignores the Hove that is now claiming our attention, the Hove that needs investment and focus. And I guess we were first tipped off to that by Hove electing a Labour MP.

People were very surprised by that. I said at the time that we should change the old joke from calling Hove 'Hove ...actually' to calling it 'Hove...really', because when you told people that Hove had gone Labour they said: 'Really??!!!'

So here's a remarkable statistic. Ten per cent of the population of Poets Corner is from ethnic minority groups and 60 per cent of the traders in Portland Road East, from School Road to Sackville Road, are Asian.

In their raffle at last weekend's Community Festival, most of the prizes were either meals for two or haircuts which, as one of the organisers said, means either Asian or Chinese.

The second prize, donated by a relative of one of the traders in Portland Road, splendidly summed up the mix of 21st Century Britain because it came from The Elizabethan Tandoori Cottage. How Shakespeare would have loved the idea of a half-timbered curry.

The food we ate from the festival stalls was Sudanese Coptic or Indian, as well as the sponges so beloved of all community events. Food is the great unifier. The veggie samosa can overcome all differences.

The unexpected rainbow of cultures in the area is dazzling. Last December they celebrated Dwali and Christmas, both the mainstream Christian one and the Sudanese Coptic one on January 7. Then there was Eid and the Chinese New Year. And last weekend there was a get-together involving the Methodists, the Muslims and the Hindus. There is now Hindu and Muslim Women's Group.

Much of this has come about because of one woman, Gloria Adiba, who happens to be one of the 100 Faces chosen by The Place To Be last year.

She started the community association with a grant from the Scarman Trust. They gave her £2,000 as part of their Can-Do Awards, designed to "finance and empower people in their own communities."

The Poets Corner and West Hove Group has also teamed up with the pressure group that is refurbishing Stoneham Park.

Gloria is working with the park group, that is centred on the YMCA and the efforts of a dedicated pair, called Don Brown and Peter Bayard. They are campaigning to transform what is frankly a bit of a tarmac jungle into a space for all ages.

At the moment there are problems with drugs, teenagers hanging out with nothing to do and graffiti - the kind of problems you associate with an inner city rather than a place like Hove.

They want to raise £140,000 for improvements.

In six weeks they've raised £10,000 and last weekend they made another £1,800.

And they have decided that the council can't be expected to come up with it all and just do it for them, so they are starting a lottery and are approaching businesses.

Communities all over Brighton and Hove are transforming themselves.

The Government invested £47 million in East Brighton and there is definitely a feeling that Hove and Portslade wants to play its part and get the investment it so badly needs.

Like in the Seventies, when some of us published a report called Behind the Facade to alert people to Brighton's social needs, we may now need to do the same for Hove.