Google claims that while they’re not the first to aggregate geography-based news, they do it better:

[W]e’re able to create a local section for any city, state or country in the world and include thousands of sources. We’re not simply looking at the byline or the source, but instead we analyze every word in every story to understand what location the news is about and where the source is located.

The example they give: Duluth.

I plugged in my zip code in Eden Prairie and as early as the second page the results include Minnesotan representation in the Grammys, multiple stories about the Plymouth apartment fire, and a North Minneapolis boy who went missing and is now believed to have been murdered (sad :( ). Nothing to do with Eden Prairie. You’d expect that the results would just end there, or stick with Eden Prairie but go back farther in time. But no, it goes on into infinity as Google search results often do.

It wasn’t that easy to find, either. I ended up modifying my personalized Google News page. I expected there to be some easy navigation to the Local search at the top of the page, but there wasn’t.

I suspect plugging in “Minneapolis” or “St. Paul” will be like drinking from the fire hose. I think it’s more valuable for much smaller cities that you’d expect to return relatively few results. But, based on what I’ve seen, you’ll have to do some mental filtering of the quality of your results. Also, with so many news sources online having not-so-permalinks, I doubt you can find quality local news links much more than a week back in time.