As our post yesterday indicated, the public does seem to have an appetite for a certain type of very local news and information that traditional media don't do a good job of serving up. Call it hyperlocalism or church newsletter gossip or whatever.
Community isn't defined from the top down, as the Claremont 400 would like you to believe, with a small group dictating who belongs and who doesn't. Real communities form spontaneously from neighbors talking to each other, shopping, walking, picking their kids up from school. Councilmember-elect Sam Pedroza, who has a background in urban planning, ought to go back and re-read Jane Jacob's The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
The disconnect in Claremont during the Southard regime (ca. 1988-2005) came about because the city administration and the 400 failed to listen to communities and did just what Robert Moses did in New York City. Councilmember-elect Linda Elderkin talks a lot about "civility" and "consensus" but the real incivility came from her friends who controlled the city for so long. Elderkin wants to take the city back to that time, and official incivility and insensitivity will inevitably follow. And the Daily Bulletin and Claremont Courier (if it exists) will be late to report it.
It's a different time, though. There are other ways for communities to communicate and share information. The ways of Claremont, good and bad, can be made known to the world now.
New sites like Placeblogger.com are connecting communities like ours with the rest of the country and the world. Placeblogger started shortly after New Year's Day this year, and it opened with links to 700 community blogs around the country. We were listed on Placeblogger today and received a cool note from Placeblogger founder Lisa Williams in Watertown, MA. Thanks for the info Lisa:
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 19:39:22 -0400
From: "Lisa Williams"
To:claremontbuzz@yahoo.com
Subject: Is your local paper dying?
They can do better -- particularly when they combine the resources of residents and bloggers and the newsroom.
Check out what the Fort Myers News-Press has done with its story on Cape Coral water and sewer rates. Combining input from hundreds of readers, online forums, and liveblogging meetings, they triggered a DOJ investigation into waste, fraud and abuse that was fleecing local residents. Link: They can do better -- particularly when they combine the resources of residents and bloggers and the newsroom.
Link:
http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article? ID=/20060821/CAPEWATER/60821027
Blogs and journalism isn't either/or: it's both+and.
Lisa W.
Placeblogger.com and H2otown.info
Keep those cards and letters coming! More mailbag notes to come.
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