Best of 2010: State and City Blogs

Last week we cranked out the Top 5 Federal Blogs of the year and it just wouldn’t be fair not to do the same for state and local. Not trying to throw feds under the bus but often time state and especially local folks can do some really cool things quicker because there is less of a work around in implementing things. With that said we’ll jump right into it with State Blogs.

5.) Lohrmann on Infrastructure: This blog hosted on GovTech (Government Technology) is written by Dan Lohrmann, Michigan’s CTO. Lohrmann really covers it all in the IT sector whether it’s local or federal government. One of the cool things about this blog is that since it’s written on GovTech it’s rather regular and also focuses on the niche community of Gov Techies and gets into the nitty gritty.

4.) AZ Dept. of Health Services Director’s Blog: Written by Will Humble this blog really delivers great health advice as well as info on AZ specific programs and initiatives in the health sector. The layout is super clean and most importantly the blogs which are about health care and government (two of the hardest things to understand) are written in plain language and easily understood.

3.) Mass.gov Commonwealth Conversations: Massachusetts Gov’t has a lot of blogs. Yeah I could bookmark them all or set them all up on my google reader but there’s no need since the state has pooled them all together. With in the site you can set up alerts and follow specific posts and posters. Plus everything is broken down by category as well. It’s nice to see a state really own blogging in all facets.

2.) From Our Corner: This blog is from the staff at the Washington State Secretary of State’s Office. I know this shouldn’t matter with blogs but they have one of the coolest banner designs out there. On the blog they talk a lot of budget but dabble in just about everything Washington gov’t.

1.) The Thicket at State Legislatures: This blog is great! If it’s state gov they’ve got it covered. While this blog hasn’t been super active recently they still have links and feeds to most state blogs out there including senator and congressmen blogs. This could be considered a one stop shop which is pretty impressive.

Alright lets get smaller here and rock it out with city blogs.

5.) The Chief Seattle Geek Blog: I’ll admit we are a little bias here because the blogs author Bill Schrier, Seattle CTO was one of our GovUp speakers but Bill’s blog doesn’t disappoint. It sounds cheesy to say but Bill’s personality really comes through in his blog and he drops tech knowledge like no other CTO out there.

4.) Common Ground: This park blog out of Louisville, KY gives outdoors people a reason to stay in and read on their computer. They cover a lot of the local park and rec events and give the community an important place to give feedback.

3.) Blog from the Office of the City Manager, Lowell MA: believe it or not there are actually a lot of good city manager blogs out there and this one is no exception. Who knows better than the city manager what’s happening in the city? I’m guessing the list isn’t that long and in Lowell, MA they blog about it.

2.) City Manager’s Blog East Lansing, MI: Yep another city manager blog. But this one really sinks into issues rather than community happenings. Also if you don’t know it East Lansing is home to Michigan State University so the city has lots of interesting challenges that most cities don’t deal with so it’s kind of cool to see how they do it.

1.) Ventura City Manager Blog: Rick Cole (writes the blog) is an absolute rockstar transitioning seamlessly from national issues into how they affect people locally. In his latest post he talks about the “Day of Reckoning” (taken from 60 Minutes) that is coming for local gov’t and what it all means… it’s pretty much a must read.