I have found it interesting and heartening that the Mayor of Braddock, PA (John Fetterman, a Harvard graduate from York, PA) is pushing hard to promote his depressed town.  He has been pounding the pavement to get his message out in the media.  He has put thousands of dollars of his own money into the community.  He bought an old church and turned it into a community center and foot the bill for a website all about Braddock, he also has tattoos of the zipcode, 15104 and dates of deaths that have occured during his time as Mayor.  Whats funny is that Braddock is so depressed but is one of the last places in Western PA to actual have a Steel Mill!

You can visit his site at http://www.15104.cc/

The Cap Solution  (An environmental idea to turn old mills into place to make alternative energy like wind turbines).

New York Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/us/01braddock.html

Post-Gazette article: The Next Page: Braddock, The Rebound Town

Wikipedia: Braddock, PA