Regional Pages + Duplicate Content

HI all, I'm looking to add pages to my site which offers local services. Let's say I want to discuss providers in cities/states (US).

So I have 2 pages:

/services-ny/
/services-la/

On these two pages I have a list of different companies in these areas.

For the second part of the page, I want to write about the service i.e 'Benefits of buying services' or 'why purchase is better than renting' etc.

For this second part, can I use simialar or same content, if not, how do people get around limitations like this?

Thanks in advanced.

Similar content will work fine, and I have often seen duplicate content rank just the same. Change it up a bit on each location and you will be fine.

Thanks Dr Rok. When you say change it up, to what extent would this be? i.e dont copy and paste an entire passage? or is that cool?

Yeah, just change it up a bit, you can essentially say the same thing but in a different way. If you are writing about a service area provide information about the location area in the content as well. Overall you can keep the structure similar, but you can basically relay the same content.

A good idea would be to look at sites that do this already so you have an idea. mrhandyman is one for example that you can change locations and see the different pages saying the same thing essentially.