In the past week, I've found an emergence of area and neighborhood specific blogs.
The best example I've seen so far is for the Kirkland area, a city on the other side of the water of Seattle (with a beautiful view in the summer btw):
http://kirklandweblog.typepad.com/kirkland_weblog/
The key to a succesful neighborhood or city blog seems to be in having multiple authors. The mix of real estate, local gossip, business, events, parks and restaurant reviews keeps the content fresh, diverse and well suited for mass appeal.
There seems to be a ton of blogs dedicated to the big cities in the United States. As suburbs and late adopters start hearing about the virtues of blogging, I think we'll continue to see more online, private resident content as a means of local news, and less reliance on the trash they call the 10 oclock news.