a site for YOUR city is an excellent idea and i have seen very successful ones. typically there might be multiple parts best fitted for such a project 1. a flat file of dbase oriented info part for your city with all the data - addresses, numbers, etc dine out guide hotel guide shopping guide activities, recreation, sports guide ... 2. a photo gallery wtih high resolution pics/wallpapers/video/flash-clips from all important views of your city and the neighborhood if for example using gallery2 software - then each photo also can be sent as eCard - a service my gallery users are using regularly to keep friends informed about where they are or plan to go ... 3. a blog with daily news - of course with RSS feed 4. a forum where city people may add info or answer questions and where potential visitors can ask additional questions about your city such answers then either can be replied in forum OR in modified / updated general info pages 5. you then may add either a video clip library about various exciting areas of your city ( discos, public places, recreational places, etc ) OR you may even add a live-camera from one or several important city views and on all pages ATF ( Above The Fold ) you have your adsense to offer an advertising platform for your own city business hence you then also include adWORDS affiliate links to inspire local business to more efficiently promote their local business in your city the most important of all you need to make sure YOU can easily manage and maintain/update ALL pages easily and efficiently I do above since years for my (guest-) country most successful as an add on to my self-created content site and I have all a.m. sections included on my site - flat files, blog, gallery, wallpapers, ecards, ...
Thanks a million for your very detailed answer, hans, that's very helpful. I will focus on the first part at the beginning, maybe it's best to use a custom-made script. For other modules such as blog, gallery, use 3rd party script. Thanks again for your help.
1st part is the one attracting most basic site-visitors whatever - however - make it simple and easy to maintain and update i do the 1st part usually flat files had coded and lots of pics added to the general info - ppl LOVE pics - a photo may say more than a thousand words for my gallery i use gallery2 - open source PHP - easy to setup, to maintain and also with features that allow members to publish photos ( for example selected invited ppl from your city ) - incl RSS feeds for each album and ecards modules etc http://gallery.menalto.com/ Good luck