A partial reposting of a great idea and trend from Kara Hadge of Next American City

We at Scaledown had a meeting several weeks ago, where we discussed the possibility of refocusing Scaledown from just blogging to a more action orientated focus via our blog, With Mark Boscariol reaffirming our values and mission in; Reaffirming Scaledown as a way of life, Hadge below writes of several people who have no formal training in Urban Planning, like us of Scaledown but the passion of loving the place where they live.

Alpert himself has no formal training in journalism or urban planning, a characteristic shared by some of DC’s other local bloggers, like Dan Silverman. The voice behind Prince of Petworth, Silverman also covers neighborhoods across the District at a granular level of detail. He started the blog in 2006 to highlight the development of his rapidly changing neighborhood of Petworth, but decided to expand his scope. “I walk everywhere,” Silverman explained, “and I saw changes in [nearby] Columbia Heights affected me almost as much as changes in Petworth.” Among the subjects that pique his interest are dog parks, bike routes, gentrification, crime, and neighborhood boundaries. Though his blog is one of the oldest and best-known in the city, he views his role as neither journalist nor pontificator: Instead, he tries to create a sense of trust in the blog that will allow candid conversation among members of the community.

Kara Hadge starts the article by explaining what Hyperlocal media is and how it came to be:

As an adult, Garber started learning things he never knew about some of DC’s up-and-coming neighborhoods by reading local blogs. When he first began looking for information about Anacostia, he says, “There wasn’t a lot of great information coming out of the neighborhood.” The majority of positive news was published in its local newspaper, East of the River, which doesn’t reach the majority of the DC population west of the Anacostia River. So, in 2007 Garber started writing what is now one of Southeast Washington’s best-known neighborhood blogs, And Now, Anacostia.  Blogging is a side project for Garber, but one, he said, with an ulterior motive that ties into his day job: “Making Anacostia look better.”

Garber’s investment in his neighborhood is not uncommon in Washington. Workers up and down Pennsylvania Avenue and K Street might be the city’s recognized power players, but it’s the District’s neighborhoods that give it character—and it’s those neighborhoods that will shape the next phase of Washington media. In recent years, the D.C. area has witnessed a proliferation of local blogs, some covering the entire city, such as DCist, and others homing in on just a few blocks, like H Street Great Street.

Washington’s dozens of hyperlocal online news sources—those that cover a narrower audience than traditional media outlets, whether a neighborhood or just a portion of it—are filling important information gaps left by mainstream media. As local print newspapers have folded and news media in general have become more interactive, hyperlocal digital media have stepped in to cover issues that matter at the neighborhood level. In the process, they’re changing the way we interact with the cities in which we live.

And this:

Other bloggers take a more active role in bridging the gap between providing news about the community and effecting change there. Veronica Davis, for example, is an urban planner in Southeast Washington who blogs at Life in the Village, about Fairfax Village, a condominium association in Southeast, and its neighborhood Hillcrest. Her posts inform readers how to contact their local elected officials and what open action items are still sitting on the public agenda. And because her readers know and trust her, they’re more likely to get involved. “My neighbors read this blog, so then what they say is, well, Veronica’s doing all that she can, so let me go ahead and start putting in my 311 request or let me start emailing, so then all of a sudden [government officials] start getting these floods of emails,” Davis said this summer.

With the media landscape constantly changing, there’s still plenty to learn about the potential for hyperlocal media in shaping urban development. Although many of these hyperlocal blogs will report both good and bad news, others are apt to focus on the positive. Online news coverage doesn’t always lead to offline action, and it’s of little use to people who lack online access. But as a test case, Washington’s hyperlocal media show how a wider variety of residents can become more engaged in processes that have often been left to a much smaller group of individuals. As blogger David Alpert observed this summer, “A blog can get a lot more people to be participants.” And as urban populations swell, diverse input in urban planning can’t be a bad thing.

So this is a good read, not just for us here at Scaledown but for any citizen that wants to get involved in their neighbourhood, the technology is cheap, the means of reporting easy, your time - priceless on how you want your city to be.

Tags: blogging, Dan Silverman, David Alper, David Garber, hyperlocal media, Kara Hadge, Mark Boscariol, Neighborhoods, Next American City, Veronica Davis, Washington