"Wow, what a crowd," said John Whitehead, the chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, from his brightly-lit podium.

"Today is about listening to all of you... This is one of the finest public meeting formats ever established."

The market dictates it? Well, the market sucks!

Jennifer Adams, critic of commercial redevelopment

It was hard to disagree with the LMDC's boss - the organisation that will recommend a final plan for rebuilding the World Trade Center site, and shattered downtown area, by next Christmas.

There were 5,000 pre-selected people filling the largest hall of New York's largest conference centre.

All had come to be a part of "Listening to the City" - the highly-anticipated meeting designed to give ordinary New Yorkers a say in the planning process.

Using the very latest push-button voting technology and audio-visual aids, the audience was divided into 500 separate discussion groups, each with their own "facilitator".

Broad spectrum

Fittingly for the most international city in the world, representatives from all 50 US states were there, along with volunteer participants from Afghanistan, Australia, Canada, Colombia, and the UK.

The first of many instant electronic polls taken throughout the day created an almost TV game-show atmosphere: "Press one if you are female - two if you are male. No, there is not another category here today," quipped the queen-facilitator, Carolyn Lukensmeyer.

The serious business of the day was to provide feedback on the six different draft proposals for redeveloping the twin towers site, which were unveiled to the public last Tuesday.

BBC News Online was offered a seat at table number 330, next to Sally Regenhard, who lost her 28-year-old son Christian in the WTC attack. He was a probationary fireman.

Patriotism is never far away in New York

"Instead of focussing on what they look like, we should be focussing on how these new buildings are being built - whether they are safe and have proper evacuation plans," said Sally - who runs a pressure group called the Skyscraper Safety Campaign.

Further round the table, Jennifer Adams, who used to work in the World Trade Center, criticised one of the basic requirements of all the provisional plans - replacing the 11 million square-feet of commercial office space that was lost.

Reflecting the growing grassroots criticism of big business in America, everyone nodded vigorously when she said: "The market dictates it? Well, the market sucks!"

Suzanne, a catering consultant who lives just two blocks from the devastated site, said: "We need affordable housing most of all - that is nowhere really in these plans. We need parks and simple spaces.

"There is no point putting an opera house or three museums there. It is just tacky."

Memorial centrepiece

Conversation around the table kept coming back to the exact nature and size of the memorial that will inevitably be the centrepiece of the final plan.

Our moderator, Krista Andrews, who had come all the way from North Dakota to give her services free, suggested that memorial museums might be needed in every state of the US, in the spirit of national solidarity.

The messages flowing back electronically to the LMDC representatives and the Port Authority executive - which owns the actual site of the twin towers - were flashed up on giant screens.

T-shirts promoted the meeting in New York

No "overly rushed and political process" read one. "Not too much commercial space" read another.

Talking to the lobbyists and activists milling around the fringe of this extraordinary meeting, it is clear that many believe it is too late for public pressure to bring real change.

Mark Berkey Gerard, is on the editorial staff of the influential Gotham Gazette, which monitors public policy in New York.

"The commercial obligations on the lease really ties the hands of the authorities. There is a huge list of things that simply cannot happen, and most of the big questions have already been decided," he said.

Beneath the calm and organised process of discussion, the deep sense of anger at what happened on 11 September still prevails here.

One man on a table I passed wore a T-shirt with the newspaper headline edict: "Simply Kill These Bastards."

It was a defiant mood more subtly conveyed by the head of planning for the LMDC, Alexander Garvin, who told the meeting to have pride in its work:

"Those criminals failed. Democracy is alive and well today."