The last step in the rise of the blog will be the connection of virtual and real space. Your favorite blogger might be in New York, but if you’re living in Oregon, chances are he’s not going to be covering local ordinances or missing dogs.

This is a crucial step for citizen journalism and the democratic process in general. When supporting local causes is as easy as checking your RSS reader, and when the paths of communication are transparent, the seemingly giant gap between an initial desire for change and actually seeing results evaporates.

So how do you find out who’s blogging in your neighborhood? Many hyperlocal blog directories are sprouting up and existing blog aggregators are growing local searches in order to fill this emerging demand. Here are a few of the better ones. (Don’t see your favorite local blog search here? Let us know in the comments of this post.)

Placeblogger.com: The most recent and promising site on the scene, to which Jay Rosen serves as an advisor, Placeblogger has a slick interface and enough buzz to draw a healthy amount of contributors.

Musicians are another in what seems like a growing list of groups to take advantage of the concepts behind the open source movement. More and more, large record companies are losing their stranglehold on the industry.

Thanks to some great recording programs, almost anyone with a microphone jack in their computer has a way to record and mix original songs.

This is where SellaBand comes in. Like NewAssignment.Net, SellaBand relies on crowds to make logistical mountains into molehills.