Locally focused group "metro" blogs -- compilations of events, reflections, recommendations, news and complaints -- are emerging to put a number of big cities in intimate, street-level relief.

So says a feature in the Oakland Tribune news. The article talks about local blogs that are popping up in metropolitan areas like New York and Chicago.

These blogs are gaining ground in terms of audience if not dollars. . .

But visit numbers to this new breed of Web journal are respectable if not huge. Gothamist.com averages more than 30,000 unique visitors daily, while blogging.la. . .averages around 2,000. Compare that to Instapundit.com, one of the most popular blogs, averages nearly 140,000 daily visitors.

There's something about the "man on the street" opinion that rings true with people. Whether it's a blurb about the best places to eat, traffic congestion during the RNC, or news about upcoming film festivals or wine tastings, these "individual voices of local residents may offer a level of authenticity missing elsewhere."

I don't live in a major Metropolitan area, unless you consider the birthplace of Elvis (and, no, I don't mean Memphis) metropolitan. (We do get our fair share of international visitors wanting to see the two-room shanty where he was born. BTW, did I ever tell you the story of my wife's grandmother babysitting Elvis when he was a boy? Maybe some other time. :-) ) Since that's true for most of us, these blogs make for little more than interesting, fun portals into urban life, particularly from the viewpoint of the more "hip" set.

Regardless, I think local blogs have many useful applications even for small-town America. One can cover local politics, restaurants, the local music scene, retail, and the arts. . .the works, all from the standpoint of your daily interactions with those entities. (Here's an example from one smaller city, Eden Prairie, Minnesota, authored by Scott Neal, the city manager. It lacks the luster of some of its big city cousins, but is a useful example of how blogs can be applied to a local setting.)

What a chronicle of Americana these blogs could be. In fact, according to the Tribune, while "many blogs, like Gapersblock.com in Chicago and NewYorkish.com in New York, focus on just one metropolis. . .this summer, a site called Metroblogging.com launched a network of blogs for major cities including Chicago, New York, San Francisco, London and Vienna."

That's gotten my mojo going wondering if something similar could be created for smaller cities and towns. I guess the place to start is with my own town, Tupelo, Mississippi. See how that goes, then branch out from there.

One last thing. While the Tribune says that neither Metroblogging.com nor Gothamist.com is making a profit, these type of blogs could be a seedbed for local advertising.

Here's a list of the local blogs mentioned in the article. The paper didn't feel it necessary to provide such links itself (When will they ever learn?!). . .

Los Angeles

• blogging.la

Chicago

• Gapersblock.com
• Chicagoist.com

New York

• Gothamist.com
• NewYorkish.com

And don't forget the Metroblogging website.