Local e-Democracy, from the UK to Florida

Today's reflexive assumption: that online organizing and political publishing are both best done on a national scale, while local politics still occurs largely offline.

That may be true. Recently, however, I've discovered some interesting examples of local online organizing: The UK Local e-Democracy National Project has published "Civic Leadership Blogging: How to use blogs as an effective local leadership tool." "Britain has been a major leader in the civic blogging efforts," reports NetPulse, "with the government pilot Read My Day even offering blogspace to civic leaders." In addition, UK policy wonk Tom Steinberg has launched mySociety, a nonprofit "which builds websites that give people simple, tangible benefits in the civic and community aspects of their lives." Meanwhile, over in Florida, the St. Petersburg Times reports on grassroots efforts to make "a big political splash on local issues" through e-activism.