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GREENSBORO - At the corner of Spring Garden and Mendenhall, where the tragically hip mingle and drink, you can't miss the wallpaper splashed across the broad window at College Hill Sundries.

It's just a mass of fliers - one for a paint and tile company, one for a film series, one for a foosball tournament, and at least four for local bands.

Pass a few storefronts, you'll spot a quote from a Zen Buddhist monk below a fat ceramic frog. Pass a few houses, you'll discover a playground hidden from the street.

Weave through car after car after car, you'll see bumper stickers that seem as loud as a rebel yell: Subvert The Dominant Paradigm, Honk If You Honky Tonk, We Need An Adjective! Now!

This neighborhood of front porches and quirky architecture, of college students and retirees, has created its own kind of community that follows the syncopated beat of its own snare.

It's the city's oldest neighborhood, a spot called Piety Hill after the Civil War; "Hippie Hill" after the Vietnam War. Now, it's simply known as College Hill.

And today, the neighbors living between the bookends of Greensboro College and UNCG are starting to dream. They want to find a way to preserve the soul of this historically hip place.

They started last week at the Presbyterian Church of the Covenant , one of the neighborhood's two churches, and they'll meet through May, in cyberspace and community space, to create College Hill's first development plan since 1978 .

It's a big deal, especially when you think of where College Hill is going - and where it's been.

Three decades ago, College Hill was run-down and suffering. Houses had fallen into disrepair, crime was rampant, and neighbors didn't feel safe.

But with a stroke of a pen, College Hill became the city's first historic district. That move gave the neighborhood the guidelines it needed to protect itself from almost anything - including its two bookends of higher education.

Since then, about 100 houses have been renovated, nearly 150 new housing units have been built and about $14 million in public funds has been spent, an investment that has raised property values and community spirit.

But it's a new day outside Julie Davenport's front porch. Like many of her neighbors, she worries about the future outside her 11-room, 90-year-old house .

It's easy to understand why.

Try to park during the day. You can't. Ask about the future enrollment of UNCG and Greensboro College. It's daunting. Inquire about crime. It's declined, but a few isolated incidents - a fight at College Hill Sundries, a robbery on Walker Avenue - have a few neighbors wondering how safe they are under their quaint streetlights.

Then consider the attraction of available land nearby. Once our recession becomes a bad memory, you can expect the insatiable crawl of development will start eating away again at the edges of College Hill.

All Davenport has to do is drive a few blocks from her house and see what happened near Mayflower Drive . Behind a line of small houses is a huge apartment complex with more than 500 parking places.

"You lose that sense of place," said Davenport, 45 , who has lived in College Hill for 17 years . "When development takes over, traffic increases. Parking gets worse. And right now, it's already horrible.

"You can't replace these houses. They don't make them like this anymore."

Talk to Davenport and her neighbors where they feel comfortable - in their churches, their apartments, their renovated kitchens, their businesses - and you sense their wariness.

They're wading into five months full of tension. Some don't trust the city. And they're writing a development plan - similar to what has taken place in two other Greensboro neighborhoods, Glenwood and Lindley Park - with the help of the city.

Yet, they say, it's crucial.

"True conversations happen on the edge of your chairs," says the Rev. Jim Dollar , 64 , the minister of the Presbyterian Church of the Covenant for 12 years . "You know something's at stake. Something to be gained. Something to be lost. And from that clash, sparks fly. Who knows where it will be going? But that's the wellspring of life."

And the wellspring of community.

Any morning at Tate Street Coffee House , you'll see it around the well-dressed mannequin of Frank Sinatra. Or any Tuesday night, at College Hill Sundries, you'll sense it right about 10 o'clock when 15 people become 50.

Of course, with a $1 Pabst Blue Ribbon in their hand.

Jake Kidd , 25 , a UNCG graduate student, calls that a "magical moment." And he wants many more of them. That's why he's involved in the planning process.

"This is my neighborhood,'' said Kidd, who has lived in College Hill for three years. "I don't own any property. But I feel connected. This place has shaped me."

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com