I’ve noticed a lot of interest in hburgnews — a lot more than I expected when I started it. It took a while for the word to spread, but without ads or fliers, lots of people have caught on, and I now have several other people (some whom I have yet to meet in person) posting about upcoming events, local environmental issues, school district issues, and getting the word out about certain things before TV, radio, or newspapers can run the stories.

I’ve also been able to team up with Kai from OrangeBand to organize community meetings about issues like immigration, which members of city council have attended.

Not to get all philosophical about it, but since so many people spend time on the world wide web, it seems that there is no sense of a “local internet.” One of my goals with hburgnews is to develop a sense of local community online.

Posted by finnegan on 18 March 2007 @ 2pm

Not to get all philosophical about it, but since so many people spend time on the world wide web, it seems that there is no sense of a “local internet.” One of my goals with hburgnews is to develop a sense of local community online.

Amen. That was exactly why I started cvillenews.com. Generally people use the internet to divide themselves up by interest, which often ends up fragmenting people geographically. While it’s really great for people to have an avenue to become familiar with people who live in other cities, states, and nations, I think it doesn’t need to be to the detriment of physical community. Sites like yours are the antidote to the internet-induced weakening of some of our social foundations.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 18 March 2007 @ 4pm

I’ll third how well my lil’site has facilitated a sense of continued community (at times with a phenomonal response). The local blog aggregator, also an idea filtered from WJ, has also served a similar function.

Staunton and Fredericksburg both need a good local news site.

Posted by john m on 18 March 2007 @ 7pm

[...] Waldo Jaquith posted about Virginia’s growing number of community news blogs in Virginia. There was a flurry of [...]

Posted by hburgnews » community news blogs on 18 March 2007 @ 11pm

John - Fredericksburg especially. It’s a thriving community with enough local happenings that I’m really surprised it hasn’t happened yet.

Posted by Jason on 19 March 2007 @ 12pm