The Conversation About Your City Moved. Did You Follow It?

Pew Research has been tracking this for years, and the trajectory is clear.

In 2018, 38% of Americans got local information from online forums like Facebook groups and Nextdoor. By 2024, that number hit 52%. More than half of your residents are now getting information about their community from platforms your organization probably does not monitor or post information on.

At the same time, public meeting attendance has cratered. The National Civic League found that 65% of residents believe "the usual suspects" dominate community decisions. Which means the people who do show up are not representative of the people you serve.

This is not about social media strategy. This is about where your organization gets its information. If the primary input for decisions is what you hear at council meetings, in surveys, and through official channels, you are working with a shrinking slice of what residents actually think.

This is not one team's problem. It runs across the entire organization.

Your parks director has Google Reviews on every facility. Residents are rating playgrounds, trails, and rec centers the same way they rate restaurants. Most parks departments have never checked.

Your public works department likely has a Reddit thread. Residents are posting photos of potholes, debating road projects, and grading the quality of snow removal. Most public works directors have no idea that thread exists. And why aren’t they using 311?

Your city manager's office is fielding calls and emails that represent a narrow band of residents. The ones motivated enough to pick up the phone. The broader, quieter, more representative conversation is happening on Nextdoor, where 1 in 3 U.S. households are now verified members.

And your elected officials are hearing from the loudest voices in the room while the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer shows that people now trust their neighbors (61%) more than journalists (48%) or CEOs (48%). The most trusted conversations are the peer-to-peer ones happening on these platforms. Not the ones happening at the podium.

When I was the Chief Digital Officer in Gilbert, I saw this gap firsthand. We ran a quick poll on Nextdoor over a weekend about a scooter policy our council was about to vote on. What the elected officials assumed residents wanted was not what the feedback said. Not even close. That one weekend of listening on the right platform changed the direction of a policy decision.

In 2012, the restaurant industry had a crisis. Yelp and Google Reviews meant that the conversation about your food, your service, and your cleanliness was happening whether you participated or not. Restaurants that ignored it lost customers. The ones that monitored reviews, responded to criticism, and used that feedback to improve their operations survived.

Cities are in the same position restaurants were in a decade ago. The conversation about your services is already happening. On Nextdoor threads about that road construction project. On Facebook groups debating the new park design. On Google Reviews of your library branches. The question is not whether to join the conversation. It is whether you even know it is happening.

The difference is that restaurants had a market incentive. They would lose revenue. Cities do not lose residents. Which means there is no alarm bell. The information gap just quietly widens until a decision goes sideways and leadership is blindsided by a reaction they never saw coming.

Pew published a study in February 2026 that stopped me cold. Half of Americans now say they let news find them rather than seeking it out. Six in ten have reduced their overall news intake. Two-thirds have stopped getting news from a specific source entirely.

Residents are not seeking you out. They are not looking for your newsletter, your press release, or your meeting agenda. They are scrolling through feeds where your city shows up alongside their neighbor's fence project and a lost dog post.

And in the 213 counties that are now news deserts, it is even more stark. Northwestern's research found that 51% of residents in those areas rely on social media groups and influencers rather than news organizations. Forty-two percent check those groups daily.

When local news disappears, social platforms do not just fill the gap for news. They become the default place residents talk about city services, complaints, and decisions. Your city is part of the conversation whether your organization shows up or not.

The question for leadership is simple: are you making decisions based on what you hear, or based on what residents are actually saying? Because right now, for most cities, those are two very different things.

Joseph Porcelli spent years at Nextdoor building the bridge between residents and local government. On Episode 12, he said something every city leader needs to hear:

"Let's be honest, nobody in the history of time has ever woken up and nudged their partner and be like, guess what, boo. I get to go to a community meeting tonight. That's just not the case."

He is right. And the data backs it up. Only 9% of communities report good turnout in local decision-making (National Civic League, 2025). That is not a resident problem. It is a design problem. The format does not match how people live their lives anymore.

TODAY: Google your city's busiest park. Read the reviews. Then ask your parks team if they have ever seen them. That ten-minute exercise will tell you everything you need to know about the gap.

Talk soon,

Dana