This is the same situation my own city found itself in back in the 1970's and 80's. our downtown had a vacancy rate of 90%, and some of the buildings that are now restored had collapsed except for their facades.
What turned us around? Gays and artists, and the happy coincidence of being a rare spot of high-quality urbanity in this particular part of Appalachia. Wheeling has great bones, but it's just a face in the crowd -- West Virginia and Pennsylvania are teeming with lovely, well-built towns, and it's going to be hard for Wheeling to market itself and tell people why it's better than all these others like Huntingon, Parkersburg, Charleston, and all the smallish cities of Western Pennsylvania. However, if Wheeling could make an effort to reach out to artists and the LGBT community it might be off to a good start. Being an oasis for tolerance is another reason my city was able to turn itself around.
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"To sustain the life of a large, modern city in this cloying, clinging heat is an amazing achievement. It is no wonder that the white men and women in Greenville walk with a slow, dragging pride, as if they had taken up a challenge and intended to defy it without end." -- Rebecca West for The New Yorker, 1947
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