With all due respect Carbondale isn't
that bad. I would never consider living there due to its relative isolation within the metropolitan area (i.e. driving 45-minutes each way if you wanted to see a Penguins game, for example), but when I visited for my 2007 photo tour my impressions of the community transitioned from a high school dropout-oriented and mullet-obsessed redneck town to a formerly vibrant city replete with history and residents who are hellbent on bringing it back to life. I've lived my entire life in Pittston, and if you want to talk about "depressing" then you should visit our downtown business district sometime. Short-sighted elected officials of my parents' generation decided that "urban renewal" can and should involve tearing down historic brick facades to make way for parking lots, drive-thru chain drug stores, drive-thru banks, drive-thru fast-food restaurants, etc. Pittston was at one point a teeming city of 21,000 where you could live anywhere in the city and be within an easy walk of daily conveniences. Now it is a hollowed-out shell of just 7,000 surrounded by some of the most rapidly-sprawling yuppie-infested suburbs in all of NEPA.
Perhaps I was too mature for my age (and perhaps I still am), but when the ornate Borr & Casey Building on the SE corner of North Main & William was torn down because renovations to preserve it were deemed to be "costlier" than the potential to redevelop it as an empty commercial lot, I nearly shed a tear. Many years later it remains a muddy parking lot teeming with the luxury sedans of the office professionals and their support staff who work nearby. So much for that bright idea!
The Riverfront Park that was supposed to serve as a catalyst to spur private investment downtown is now overgrown, vandalized, and home to insects and foul-mouthed skater punks.
I think Carbondale is taking many more correct steps than Pittston has been taking.
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Carbondale - Pros & Cons?
You guys have all the fun! 
LOL. Anyway, I've visited Carbondale & it is a whole lot cleaner than what it was in 1974 when my father took us to Jermyn & showed us his hometown & then we drove up to Carbondale & it looked very dirty & depressing also. The Mine Fire was still burning & there were burned out homes & buildings in the center of town. The difference between now & then is quite literally night & day. Carbondale is better off now in the sense that the Mayor is trying to reverse & halt years of decline & I wish him all the best. Take Care........Keith
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