External links to improve ranking/credibility?

Will external links effect Google?

[intlmastermind]

I have a site where I am building one page (hand built, one by one) for the top 1000 metropolitan areas in the US.

I want to add maybe one or two links on each city page to an important site (like the city's government website or something like that).

Overall, this may lead to me having 1-2,000 external links on my entire site. I know incoming links will improve my ranking in Google, but while I'm building these pages, it would only take a few seconds for each page to add a quality external link, will it help?

[intlmastermind]

Bump. Anyone know?

[wolfadeus]

If you link to a porn site, will it affect your rank on google?

Most people will say yes (I certainly would). I can't see a reason why the reverse (relevant quality-links) should not have an effect.

I do what you plan to do: 1, 2 quality links on the bottom of each article page if it is useful for my users.