Some quotes:
``When it's done well, it's probably the best place in the world to live.''
``We live in the city, but you still can go fishing two blocks away.''
``When you grow up in a certain area, people watch out for you.''

When the panel members were preparing their presentation, the rest of the group came up with these issues:

1. Transportation: solving tie-ups on the expressway, improving mass transit, more stations and more access.

2. Attract industry to Philadelphia with tax abatements.

3. Business -- change tax system, create a more educated labor pool.

4. Schools -- enforce discipline, crack down on truancy.

5. Community/neighborhoods -- Work with CDCs. Involve churches in aiding the effort to deal with housing issues and homelessness.

From the panel, they decided that these improvements would make Philadelphia the most livable city in the year 2010:

Education: Neighborhoods, businesses and universities got involved in all neighborhood schools. Young people were more employable. Vocational education improved. Standards kicked in.

Safety: Crime rate was reduced by attacking teenage crime. Kids did service projects. Curfews rigorously enforced. Truancy was taken seriously.

Neighborhoods: CDCs rebuilt empty houses with low-interest loans. Home ownership increased dramatically.

Economic development: Philadelphia started to turn around after the GOP convention, when the rest of America discovered the place. The city postponed building stadiums and reinvested the money in infrastructure until the stadiums could be paid for without trouble. The port was resurrected. ''Riverboat gambling didn't hurt.''

Other points the panel cited as keys to progress:

Ed Rendell was hired as a consultant for the city after his mayoral term was up, and before he became governor.

The city created a yearly competition among schools, asking students how to sell Philadelphia to their peers across the country. The best ideas were implemented. It worked.

A regional cultural tax was put into place.

Schools became safer because kids wanted to be there. Kids wanted to get a diploma because there would be a job waiting for them if they did. Compact with businesses, who gave preference to Philadelphia residents. Schools were open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., with lots of adult education.

Zoning was coordinated with the suburbs.