We nominate PhillyFuture. They give groups like ours a voice and provoke us to be better and do better

a good, lucid and personalized write might be: http://waiterrant.net/
or if you want the surprisingly verbose and well written club bouncer who expresses his emotions with a bit of *ahem* “color”: http://standingonthebox.blogspot.com/

and if you’re going to be in Houston/San Antonio, I have a few restaurants you should definitely try!

Still, it’s a great resource for both reporting local interest items and enabling communication between the most active local bloggers.

This
http://blog.news-record.com/jrblog/
may be the best point of entry. They have a number of blogs (e.g., sports, local, arts, etc.) and take inputs from commenters. Often an article gets posted there first and sees print only after it is “vetted” by blog-readers. Readers also get to drive the topics and stories they want to see covered in the print edition.

Philly Future is “Craigs List” on steriods, with flair.

Karl’s focus has always been on empowering the Philadelphia community, and it has been amazing to see how many people have jumped into the site and started to contribute.

A case in point is a person who began writing a blog on Philly Future that focuses on the issue of eminent domain in our area. The board of commissioners of Lower Merion, a town on the main line in Philadelphia, had condemned a perfectly nice stretch of businesses because it wanted to put in more high-end stores and parking lots. Many of the businesses had been around for a long time — notably, one stationary store has been open since 1926.

This person came onto Philly Future and began to promote The Save Ardmore Coalition, a collection of citizens and businesses opposing this use of eminent domain. Empowered by our site, this blogger helped amplify the concerns of Ardmore’s citizens, and got the word out to other bloggers.

Just today, we learned that because of this bloggers’ work, The Economist has published a story on the issue. As the Economist article reports, the town board has begun to retreat on its proposals because of the grassroots and netroots efforts of The Save Ardmore Coalition.

This is only one example of a way in which community sites like Philly Future have begun to change the face of journalism and politics. We are providing a space for the citizens of Philadelphia to meet one another and share their concerns. And they have begun to use that space to empower themselves, and bring about changes in their local communities — changes that then get reported in the MSM.

I could talk about many other cases in which Philly Future has played an important role in Philadelphia affairs, from Latoyia Figueroa to Live 8, but I hope you get my drift. This is journalism from the ground up, and it’s making a difference.

Regards,
Nathan Moore
Nashville, Tennessee

Whether the subject is eminent domain (a big local regional topic), the pay raises that recently took place in state legislature, the peace demonstrations that happened last night, great music and food – our site is written by the community – for the community – with a terrific editorial all volunteer team that helps to guide it in a focused regional direction.