Is East Saint Louis a Lost Cause?

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Every once in a while, I have to drive through East Saint Louis, such as yesterday on my way to Apex Recycling to turn in my aluminum cans for cash. I got $68, by the way, for that. But every time I drive through there, I find it to be such a depressing sight. Boarded up houses, trash everywhere, potholes as big as canyons, dilapidated buildings and closed businesses. Such as down 9th street. An old Popeye's closed up, turned into a Ray's and still shuttered. A closed McDonald's. A closed Wendy's. There is not a single major grocery store in the city. In fact, it's mostly a ghost town with tall weeds, empty lots with falling down homes, rusty cars... It's just a terrible sight. Of course, we know why East Saint Louis is the way it is. It's poverty-stricken and it has fallen victim to its own lack of concern or importance by its citizens. Crime has largely driven out anyone wanting to do business there. On top of that, many people there don't want to work since it might impact receiving welfare benefits. And no one outside of East Saint Louis will go there to work. It makes me wonder, when a city has fallen so badly such as East Saint Louis has, is there any hope it could ever be revitalized? And how would someone do it? It's a deep-rooted problem that it suffers that would take decades to rebuild from. More importantly, how would you encourage the people who live there to make a deep and impassioned contribution to making it better? What kind of money would need to come into town? And who would do it? And would it even be worth it to try?