Finding Friends... and Hope in Sad Cities Like Scranton, PA and Worcester, MA

While on a week-long roadtrip through Pennsylvania, the wife and I stopped in Scranton for a night to visit friends. The parallels between Scranton and Worcester are unmistakable: Both are once prominent and wealthy towns that have over the past 100 years fallen upon hard times. Now they struggle to regain relevance in an economy that has over time made each town and their respective and once vital industries obsolete and irrelevant.

Worcester's heyday was more than a century ago, when the mills generated millions of dollars for industrialists and the town attracted world-class cultural institutions and world-famous visitors. Scranton's history--built on turn of the century coal, textile mills and railroad profits--is similar.

Driving into towns like Scranton and Worcester is depressing: The roads are generally in poor shape; the once-proud houses are uniformly dilapidated; the formerly bustling downtown shopping districts are filled with boarded-up stores and populated by vagrants or aimlessly wandering people.

But yet... Peel back the shabby veneer of these depressing and depressed towns and you find underneath neighborhoods filled with families and professionals who refute the reports of the demise of their respective towns. They believe fervently in the vitality of their hometowns and preach it to visiting skeptics.

They point to the reconstruction of Victorian houses, the influx of businesses, the new grocery store down the street, the infusion of Federal, state and local grant monies that will restore "their" hometown to its previous glory days. Their enthusiasm is infectious; their loyalty impressive; their civic pride remarkable.

Being from D.C., I used to malign dirty old towns like Worcester and Scranton. Like others from more prominent and wealthy cities, including members of my own family, I looked down on these towns.

But as I've gotten to know people from towns like Worcester, and during my brief time in Scranton, I've come to realize that their civic allegiance represents hope for the future. Hope is one of the most motivating emotions we have; with hope much is possible.

So I'd say despite the socio-economic challenges these once-prominent cities now confront, the hopes of their respective citizenry bodes well for their futures.