It's not unusual for Betty Britton and her neighbors to hustle after a trash truck with bucket and broom in hand. Their mission: To tidy up after the weekly pickup in their North Philadelphia neighborhood.

That sort of dedication to community isn't unusual in Philadelphia.

Thousands of homeowners and block captains, along with scores of community and recreation groups, make a daily stand against litter, graffiti, abandoned cars and street-corner troubles.

Often, it's lonely work. "Half the time I feel like I'm the government," sighed Ms. Britton, meeting recently with others in The Inquirer's year-long Citizen Voices project.

For many residents, then, a back-to-basics approach to neighborhood issues by the next mayor might be enough to win their vote.

Many say they'd be thrilled merely with a pledge that specific municipal services would be delivered on a firm schedule. Whether it's fixing a street light, cleaning graffiti, washing the streets or towing abandoned cars, it's the spotty reliability - block to block, sometimes - that must be addressed.

The Eastern Philadelphia Organizing Project, a civic group, calls for "service expectations" - reliable predictors of what the city will do and, given scarce resources, won't be able to do.

The other half of the equation is an assurance that City Hall will partner with citizens willing to pitch in - with old-fashioned sweat or a creative idea.

Candidates John F. Street and Sam Katz offer approaches that touch upon these ideas and share a good deal in common. That much was clear to Ms. Britton and other Citizen Voices participants who dissected the candidates' positions in preparation for Sunday's citizen-led debate (10 a.m., WPVI-Channel 6). Their tally showed that the candidates agree more than they disagree about such things as the need to tend to blighted areas, coordinate and consult residents, reduce nuisance crime and tackle the scourge of junk autos.

Both men also acknowledge that neighborhood issues vary across the city, and so they stress the need to consult residents. You'll have his e-mail address, says Mr. Katz. Both vow to cheerlead block-based activism.

Such consultation is key. As Rick Shnitzler, a Spring Garden resident and Voices participant, said, "The city is littered with the results of investments without grassroots buy-in."

Each man vows to attack blight. The headline for Mr. Street's approach could be: "The Grand Plan." For Mr. Katz: "Tend to Basics, Citywide."

Mr. Street, who knows well the problems of the city's hard-hit blocks, would appoint a cabinet-level blightmeister to honcho neighborhood stabilization. He promises to bring in the bulldozers to wage war against blight, mostly in North Philadelphia. He would use much of the $17 million spent annually on blight-removal as part of the collateral needed to leverage a $250 million bond to reclaim large areas. Awaiting redevelopment, those open spaces would be fenced and greened.

It's a grand plan, all right. The problem is that it doesn't fit all - or even most - neighborhoods. Most of the city's deterioration involves blocks where there are one or two houses in need of rehab.

Mr. Katz, though vague on some details, appears to have a more doable focus. He suggests a citywide survey of abandoned structures as a preliminary step toward developing a policy described as "tending to the city's skin." Streamline the process of acquiring vacant property, he says, and make sense of the city's "uncoordinated maze" of housing programs and agencies. If joined with political will and skill, this could yield savings. If not, it'll be just more campaign blather that ran smack into bureaucratic walls.

On his other key pledge, however, Mr. Katz could deliver: And that is to establish a business-like, almost contractual relationship with neighborhoods on levels of city services. Residents might not be fully satisfied with those levels, but they'll be better off if the city guaranteed what services it did provide and made clear who was responsible.

Securing services, listening to the grass roots and supporting those broom-and-bucket brigades - that's the neighborhood challenge for the next mayor.