On so many levels, and especially for Allentown and the Lehigh Valley, the Eagles' Sept. 12 christening of PPL Center, home to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, the American Hockey League's top development team of the National Hockey League's Philadelphia Flyers, begs superlatives, headline-writer puns and Monday morning quarterback analysis.

For someone as myself, who worked in downtown Allentown for 22 years at The Morning Call, lived in the downtown (and still resides in Allentown), witnessed the 1994 collapse of the Corporate Plaza building on the very site of PPL Center and lived through (and responded to) the mixed blessing of Billy Joel's 1982 "Allentown" paean in the you know what, the Eagles' concert was nothing less than a minor miracle.

Mind you, it doesn't rank up there with the Biblical parting of the Red Sea, The Burning Bush or Walking on Water, but in the annals of contemporary Lehigh Valley politics, economics and urban renewal, the opening of the $177-million PPL Center comes close.

The approximate $1-billion, 127-acre Neighborhood Improvement District (NIZ) investment that includes the downtown Seventh and Hamilton arena and the Lehigh River Waterfront project is mind-boggling in scope.

It's not only the PPL Center and attached Renaissance hotel and Lehigh Valley Health Network Fitness facility, it's the National Penn Bancshares Inc. building with the swanky Hamilton Kitchen & Bar restaurant across the street, the Trifecta office building renovation and extension of the former Schoen's Furniture building adjacent to Zion's "Liberty Bell" UCC Church, the City Center building next to the Old Lehigh County Courthouse, the very hip Roar Social House, Don Saylor's latest restaurant venture in the former House of Chen, and more buildings and job-generator businesses to come.

After Allentown's Hamilton Street, ne Mall, lost its three anchor department stores: Zollinger's (1925-1978), Hess's (1897-1996, as The Bon-Ton, 1994), Leh's (1850-1996, said to be America's oldest department store), and other retail stores, the downtown languished.

When People magazine published a photo of the Allentown Rescue Mission "God Is Love" sign with its article about Billy Joel's "Allentown" song, it seemed to be the proverbial nail in the coffin.

While some Lehigh Valley residents reacted with disdain toward Billy Joel's "Allentown," Steve Brosky, Mike Krisukas and myself wrote an "answer song," "Hey Now (Do The Dutch)." Even so, fewer folks seemed to "get down" to downtown Allentown.

During the past 30 years, art galleries (Open Space), coffee houses (Egads), and theaters (Theatre Outlet, Pennsylvania Stage Company) came and went in downtown Allentown.

However, Allentown arts and civic leaders didn't give up. The Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley, The Baum School of Art, Miller Symphony Hall, Community Music School, James Musselman Arts Incubator, Liberty Bell Museum and other institutions not only renovated and expanded their facilities or built anew, but banded together to form the Arts District, creating the Arts Walk and Arts Park, and program-partnered with cultural and sports entities outside the district, including Lehigh Valley Heritage Museum, Lehigh Carbon Community College Donley Center, America On Wheels, Da Vinci Science Center, Valley Preferred Cycling Center (Velodrome) The Iron Pigs at Coca-Cola Park and Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom.

The Plaza at PPL Center, Butz Corporate Center, both at Ninth and Hamilton streets, Allentown Brew Works, along Hamilton Street between Eighth and Ninth streets, and The Cosmopolitan, along Sixth Street between Hamilton and Linden streets, were important steps on the way to the arena.

The arena-anchored renaissance began with the visionary NIZ tax abatement program fashioned by state Sen. Pat Browne (R-16th), backed by former state Rep. Jennifer Mann (then D-132), nurtured by Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski and made a reality by developers J.B. Reilly, Lee A. Butz, Jaindl Properties and Dunn Twigger Co. and Phantoms co-owners-brothers Jim and Rob Brooks.

NIZ development is bankrolled by state taxes with the promise, in theory and apparently already in practice, of new construction, business and jobs generating increased tax revenue, thereby recouping and increasing tax revenue.

With the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem, ArtsQuest SteelStacks, PBS39, Historic Bethlehem Partnership and a strong downtown retail and restaurant district powering Bethlehem, and the State Theatre Center for the Arts and the Crayola Center and restaurants a draw to downtown Easton, the three cities, A-B-E, are the trifecta of arts and entertainment.

Add in the region's institutions of higher learning, including Lehigh University, Moravian College, Muhlenberg College, Cedar Crest College, Lafayette College, DeSales University, Northampton Community College, Lehigh Carbon Community College, Kutztown University and East Stroudsburg University, and the greater Lehigh Valley becomes a mini-Boston (base for 250,000 college students) of about 50,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

Figure in a 50-minute radius of arts, cultural and recreational destinations: Jim Thorpe, East Stroudsburg, Kutztown, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Leaser Lake, Lake Nockamixon, Doylestown and New Hope, two-hour proximity to Philadelphia and New York City and three-hour distance to the New Jersey shore, and the Lehigh Valley, at the center of the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor, is a center of the Mid-Atlantic entertainment and cultural universe.

While many may look longingly at Seattle, Portland and Austin, or are still California-dreamin,' I've had no "little town blues," as Frank Sinatra sang in "New York, New York."

Yes, Billy Joel, I'm still "living here in Allentown," and loving the Lehigh Valley more and more.

Don't you think Billy Joel should give the new arena a look-see?

Sure, he played Stabler Arena in 1982 when 6,305 heard him sing "Allentown" (peaking at No. 17 on the charts) in Bethlehem (which the song prominently mentions) and then-Allentown Mayor Joseph Daddona gave him the key to the city.

It's about time Billy Joel sings his words to "Allentown" in Allentown.

A Phantoms' hockey team jersey awaits him.