What do four neighborhood activists, two registered Republicans, a Green-Rainbow Party member, a technology guru, a singing granny, an MIT grad and a goose lover have in common?

All want a seat in the Sullivan Chamber.

The 11 challengers looking to unseat an incumbent city councilor are jockeying to distinguish themselves as a fresh face with new ideas, but when asked about the biggest issues facing the city, most come back to at least one of the big three: affordable housing, schools and development.

"Conventional wisdom has it that there are no burning issues, and thus we are going to have a boring election and we are going to have all the incumbents getting elected," said second-time candidate Ethridge King. "But I think there are burning issues."

King chose two of the three - schools and affordable housing - but chose the state budget as his third priority.

While many candidates use similar rhetoric - an apparent lack of middle-class families topping the list - each tries to distinguish himself or herself with a little twist.

Running for the first time, Carole Bellew says Cambridge should shift its focus from low-income housing to median-income. "What you're doing is you're pricing out a whole segment of the population," she said. "We have 20 percent [affordable housing] in our stock. We don't need to be looking at affordable housing."

Bellew has worked as a neighborhood liaison between residents and developers looking to come into her East Cambridge neighborhood.

For Green-Rainbow Party candidate Aimee Smith and Laurie Taymor-Berry, former president of the Cambridge Democratic City Committee, a new rent control is the way to solve the city's housing crisis. "As part of the Green-Rainbow community, the issue that people are talking about are related to housing, both in rent control ... and stricter zoning adherence against university development and high-tech development," Smith said.

Neighborhood activist John Pitkin says there is not enough political leadership to solve any of the problems in the city. "There doesn't seem to be a lot of debate about what the problems are, and the question is what are we going to do about it?" he said, citing affordable housing, schools and development as the top issues of the campaign.

Newcomer Dan Greenwood wants to use the Internet to help the city be more responsive to community concerns about affordable housing and the schools. MIT graduate Matt DeBerglis wants to enfranchise the younger population to exact change in the city, and is focusing on housing prices. Robert LaTremouille wants to protect a small enclave of endangered geese from development. Craig Kelley wants the city to pay more attention to neighbors when considering development projects.

And Vince Dixon, the only candidate interviewed not to mention one of the big three, wants the city to become more responsive to individual residents through governmental reform.

Robert Hall was unavailable for comment.

But for now, the 11 challengers and nine councilors are in the grassroots stage of their campaign, securing support from their base - a crucial stage of any proportional representation election.

Through PR, the first nine candidates to reach quota - 10 percent of voters who show up at the polls - will win a seat on the council.

All nine city councilors - Henrietta Davis, Marjorie Decker, Anthony Galluccio, David Maher, Brian Murphy, Ken Reeves, Denise Simmons, Michael Sullivan and Tim Toomey - are seeking reelection.

The list of candidates will be finalized today when the Election Commission certifies the submitted signatures.

Next week, The Chronicle will take a look at the School Committee race, where five incumbents and three challengers are facing off to fill six available seats.