A sampling of what you're saying

Two weeks ago, we asked residents of the region to imagine that Michael Nutter, Democratic nominee and likely next mayor of Philadelphia, has materialized at your kitchen table.

You have his undivided attention for the next two minutes. Complete this sentence, "Yo, Mike! The one thing I really need you to do is . . ."

So far, upwards of 600 people have responded to this invitation.

They include city residents and suburbanites, optimists and cynics, big names and ordinary folks, entrepreneurs, senior citizens, students, cops and teachers.

You can view all of their essays on the blog of the Great Expectations project (a joint venture of The Inquirer and the University of Pennsylvania). Just go to http://go.philly.com/greatexpectations and click on the Yo, Mike! link. Feel free to add a comment.

Perhaps you will feel like the person who wrote: "I've read through all these posts, and I am so psyched! There are so many people in this city who are passionately making it better."

One person who will read all the posts is Nutter himself. He has promised to respond to Yo, Mike! posts in the paper and on the Web site, regularly throughout the summer. A week from today, we'll publish a first sampling of the best comments in the paper.

A number of themes, some predictable, some surprising, emerge from the many comments.

You can get a good sense of the divergent ways people think about Nutter's flashpoint proposal to give police greater authority to "stop and frisk" to find illegal guns. You can also sense the urgency Philadelphians feel about their public school system.

A little more unexpected, perhaps, was a topic that probably ranks third in frequency of mention: litter and dirty streets.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin hit a jangling nerve when he called our city dirty. Over and over, sometimes apologetically, sometimes with evangelical fervor, people urge Nutter to make a concerted attack on litter, graffiti and dirty streets an opening signature move of his administration.

Taxes come up a lot, for sure, as do concerns about corruption and unresponsive bureaucracy. SEPTA comes in for a beating. One citizen made a request to Nutter with which he's unlikely to comply: Shave his goatee.

To an impressive degree, people's "one thing" tended not to be self-interested, but about the good of the community. Their requests were inspirational, not transactional.

A number of people saluted Nutter's wife for saying she hoped her husband, if elected, could make it "cool to be smart" again.

Often people wrote not about a specific issue, but a heartfelt aspiration. Many want to believe that Nutter's primary win was a sign that hope isn't just for suckers. Some comments:

"The most important thing you can do as mayor is make the people of Philadelphia believe that you can make a difference in their lives. . . . The psyche of the city is more important that any single policy you could implement."

"If we cannot believe in the honesty and high ethical standards of our leadership, we are unlikely to believe, much less act on, our own abilities to transcend the often lamented 'old Philadelphia.' "

"I'd like to hear the words City of Brotherly Love spoken without derision or a scintilla of sarcasm. . . . As a taxpayer, I'd like to feel appreciated; as a neighbor I'd like to feel needed; as a voter I'd like to feel I'm part of a team that wants to do the right thing. And I'd like to say, with pride and without apology, that I'm a resident of Philadelphia.

I'd like to feel like a winner."

Wow, that's a lot to ask of one man. But it's not too much to ask of a great city.

Check out Yo! Mike on the Great Expectations Web site to see and hear a city struggling to believe again.