In Wikipedia, every article is measured against a broad global sense of "notability". An individual or a topic has to be notable and newsworthy enough to be included, and though the standards vary there is some global consensus to what it means. If an article doesn't meet the grade, it's subject to deletion.
On a Localwiki, every article is measured against an individual sense of "locality". An individual or topic has to be relevant to that location that is being covered. Standards vary widely, but the general feeling I get is that if you put the subject's dot on a map and the dot is too far from the center of gravity of the Localwiki, it will be rejected.
This gives curious and interesting results. It means that the closing of an otherwise un-notable buffet restaurant in a strip mall is notable enough for a Localwiki simply because it's local, but also that people making worldwide headlines don't have a place in a Localwiki (unless of course they have some particular and peculiar tie to a single location).
I find myself wishing that more places had local wikis – the process of editing is much less demanding when you simply need to identify that something is of local interest vs. going up against the global test. And locality is still ambiguous, but not so much as to be impossible to gauge.
Edward Vielmetti's Wordpress weblog 