Updated Aug 11, 2009 - 4:17 pm

Neighborhood blogs drive participation in city planning

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• Seattle Planning Commission survey
  

Neighborhood blogs appear to have ticked up the response numbers to a local neighborhood survey posted on the Seattle city government page.

Toward the end of June, the Seattle Planning Commission posted the questionnaire asking neighbors to respond with their thoughts on the city's progress meeting neighborhood planning goals.

Planning Commission Analyst Katie Sheehy says they sent out general announcements trying to solicit a response from 24 Seattle neighborhoods. "We've sent out announcements to hundreds of people. We've asked them to pass it along and encourage people to fill it out."

Of the 24 Seattle neighborhoods asked to participate in the survey, Crown Hill & Ballard returned the largest number of respondents. Planning Commission Analyst Katie Sheehy says it could be because of Ballard's large geographic area, but she also suspects the strong local blog presence affected the large response. "They already have a really strong blog presence in the neighborhood. There's a lot of people already engaged in neighborhood issues through the blogs, and I think that's what's driven a lot of people to respond."

Of the top five neighborhoods to respond, Crown Hill & Ballard, Greenwood/Phinney, West Seattle Junction, Capitol Hill, Columbia City, all have a strong local blog presence.

Ballard came out early with one of the most popular local area blogs, MyBallard.com. Greenwood/Phinney hosts Phinneywood, run by the same team that operates MyBallard, and the West Seattle blog has kept West Seattle residents abreast of local news since Tracy Record started working it full-time in 2007. Each of these local blogs made posts encouraging neighbors to respond to the survey. The efforts appear to be increasing the interaction between community members and city planning officials.

Wednesday is the last day for neighbors to respond to the survey. The responses will be included in the city's neighborhood status reports meant to assist in city planning for areas expected to receive a high level of population growth in near future.

• Seattle Planning Commission survey
  

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• WSB wrote...

  Clarifications

  Hi - thanks for picking up this angle; this is one of the things those of us who do neighborhood news are most proud of, bringing real-time coverage to important issues of neighborhood planning, growth and development. A few points of clarification: Among the online neighborhood-news services that are going strong, West Seattle Blog and Capitol Hill Seattle are the oldest - WSB started in late 2005, CHS in early 2006. As with most of the other sites, our missions and focuses have evolved, but it's a point of pride for us to be going on our fourth anniversary. (Our strong news focus began in December 2006, a year after we founded WSB.) Also, in regards to the responses, while Ballard/Crown Hill is indeed at the top of the bar chart, WSB's coverage area includes five neighborhoods: West Seattle Junction, Admiral, Morgan Junction, Delridge and Westwood Village/Highland Park, which if combined as the Ballard/Crown Hill area was (at neighborhood-planning time a decade ago) would be way out in front with going on 400 responses, as of this chart's publication on Monday. Just credit where credit's due to the fabulous neighborhoods of the West Seattle peninsula. And also a shoutout is deserved for two other strong neighborhood-news sites, Rainier Valley Post and Central District News, whose editors also bring their readers important information about growth and development and how to help shape their neighborhoods' future. We are all proud to be part of what is, contrary to some of the recent doom and gloom, a clearly promising, growing future for journalism.

  August 12, 2009 1:16 am

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