Fine, independent newspaper housed in US city (5)
I believe the answer is:
nifty
'fine' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'independent newspaper housed in us city' is the wordplay.
'independent' becomes 'i'.
'newspaper' becomes 'ft'.
'housed in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'us city' becomes 'ny' (I've seen this in other clues).
'i'+'ft'='ift'
'ift' put within 'ny' is 'NIFTY'.
(Other definitions for nifty that I've seen before include "Fine (slang)" , "Really good (slang)" , "Clever; stylish" , "Quick - stylish" , "Smart" .)