Robert_Charlton - 6:48 am on Oct 15, 2011 (gmt 0)

You don't really need links. What you need are citations. You are competing in Local Search. That's a different discipline.

Agreed that there are many differences, in the sense of extra layers and "opportunities"... nevertheless, organic rankings appear to influence Place Page rankings, particularly when the Place Page listings appear in straight organic searches as "blended" results (ie, those which combine Place and organic) on the first page of Google serps. And just from the standpoint of driving traffic, good links are likely to be helpful.