While the recession rears its ugly head, the small town of Braddock, Pa., shows that even in the most unlikely of places, hope can still be found. Since 2005, Braddock’s affable mayor, John Fetterman, has been working hard to revitalize his bankrupt borough, and in a recent string of interviews, he is finally giving a voice to a town in desperate need of attention.
Not too long ago, few people had heard of Braddock, and even fewer had heard of Fetterman. The town that once claimed a bustling business life and 20,000 residents now had fewer than 3,000 residents — and not a single restaurant.
“Braddock lacks a lot of the basic amenities that most communities take for granted,” Fetterman recently told Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report. “Right now, we don’t have any restaurants or any places to eat in the town.”
A nearby neighbor of Pittsburgh, Braddock is rich in steel mill history. Its most prosperous years were between 1950-60, when its population and industrial output were at their peak. But as the steel industry began to decline in the 1970s, so did Braddock.
People migrated to nearby towns and cities, and with them, they took Braddock’s livelihood. Within 30 years, the town’s population, businesses, and infrastructure had declined by 90 percent. Now, with an economic recession, the town is literally left in ruins.
Mayor Fetterman is trying to change all that. At six-foot-eight, and over 300 lbs., Fetterman is a large man with a large heart. He has a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard, and first arrived in the city via AmeriCorps in 2001. Right then, he could see Braddock was in dire straits.
Fetterman went to work, creating a program for dislocated youths that helped them earn their G.E.D., get jobs, and take care of their health and future. With his own money, he purchased an abandoned warehouse in 2003 and turned it into a residential loft for kids without homes. By 2005, he was elected Mayor of the borough.
Recently, the mayor has turned attention to bringing more people to the town by beautifying it. Last year he transformed an abandoned lot into a garden, complete with a mosaic pond constructed out of broken pieces of glass. Local teens from the Braddock Youth Project, which Fetterman started, spent a whole month putting the mosaic together, as a way to keep themselves busy and off the streets.
Fetterman has also turned old warehouses into potential art studios, brought in a few new businesses, and plans to build a youth center.
The idea that excites him the most is the incorporation of a Subway sandwich shop franchise, not only to bring in business and a place to eat, but also to bring in jobs for young people.
Unlike Bobby Jindal, Fetterman has no problem taking any money offered to him from the stimulus package. “We have a lot of green initiatives and shovel-ready projects that fit perfectly in with the stimulus package,” he said.
As for trying to sell the world on the town of Braddock, Fetterman’s statements are as simple and honest as his motives: “It really is a wonderful place, despite all the challenges it has.”
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