Allentown and the West End are now Mainstreets neighborhoods -- the Urban Redevelopment Authority's draft picks for 2008 funding.

They join 10 others in sharing $400,000 to strengthen their business corridors -- Friendship, Mount Washington, Bloomfield, Lawrenceville, Hazelwood, South Side, Downtown, Allegheny West/East Allegheny, East Liberty and the Strip District.

Mainstreets Pittsburgh is the local contingent of a revitalization model owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and orchestrated by state and local agencies. The URA reported this week that public money invested in Mainstreets locally averages a 3-to-1 return.

Mainstreets Pittsburgh "helped steward public and private investment totaling over $26 million in 2007 alone," said Patrick Ford, executive director of the URA.

In the rookie year of a six-year cycle, a neighborhood advocacy group typically receives a $5,000 planning grant, said Josette Fitzgibbons, the URA's new Mainstreets coordinator. Allentown's Warrington Avenue and the West End's South Main will be focuses of such five-year plans.

Through the rest of the funding, the group must match part of the Mainstreets money, and as it prepares to graduate, the grant decreases. By then, in theory, it would be leveraging investment beyond Mainstreets.

Neighborhood Improvement Districts, or NIDs, are one way of doing that.

East Liberty is getting another year of Mainstreets funding as it graduates into a neighborhood district. In these agreed-upon districts, stakeholders pay a fee of roughly 1 percent of property assessment for services that complement city services. East Liberty is freezing its fees at the 2005 rate.

"The first-year focus is on clean and safe," said Lori Moran, board member of the East Liberty NID Management Association. "It will evolve into whatever it wants to be, maybe with capital improvements."

On the North Side, Eric Milliron, director of business development for the Northside Leadership Conference, said part of the focus this year will be to manage a streetscape upgrade of Western Avenue -- now out for bid -- and to help revive the Deutschtown Merchants Association on East Ohio Street.

The Lawrenceville Corp., in its last year, has an assembly of business owners who will vote on the use of its funds, said Jennifer Kent, the corporation's business district manager.

"Last year, we bought string lights, hired a street sweeping company, did advertising, started a new Web site and gave microgrants for events," she said.

The South Side is getting $30,000 for a clean-up crew, said Ms. Fitzgibbons. "Hopefully, they can build support for it so it can continue."

A project of the Friendship Development Association -- on Penn Avenue between Mathilda Street and Negley Avenue -- is a survey of vacant lots and a plan for using them, with lighting, landscaping or art.

Neighbors in the Strip is following up last year's pilot of taking four businesses and giving them a strategy for better salesmanship. This year, it will do that for the first 10 merchants willing to pay $50. The extra money, said Becky Rodgers, executive director of Neighbors in the Strip, will be to announce the 10 businesses in advertisements.

Mount Washington is following that lead, starting with four businesses, said Greg Panza, the community development nonprofit's business development coordinator. A recent survey of customer ZIP codes showed that the neighborhood draws worldwide visitors, "but a lot of our businesses don't have Web sites. A Web site might help them market their business" to a wider clientele.

In Allentown, the world isn't traipsing up the hill to see anything -- yet.

"We have three blocks [in Mainstreets], and that's our front door," said Judy Hackel, president of the Allentown Community Development Corp. "This will be a great opportunity for us. I just keep plugging away up there. I won't give up."