WALTER STEPHEN is an academic jack-of-all-trades with a lifelong devotion to environmental awareness and understanding. One of his achievements was the establishment and operation for twenty years of Castlehill Urban Studies Centre, the first successful Urban Studies Centre in Britain. A former Chairman of the Sir Patrick Geddes Memorial Trust, he has been responsible for Learning from the Lasses, A Vigorous Institution and Think Global, Act Local, collections of essays on Patrick Geddes.