Leave it to Dave Winer to get me thinking. His premise is simple: how come there’s no simple news feed for a city? Why can’t we not see immediately (or even with an hour delay) all the various goings on within our city? It’s not like the information isn’t captured. More likely, there’s just no mechanism in place to push it out.

But think about it: cops pushing their efforts into RSS. Ditto the fire and ambulance. Schools realtime streaming their goings on. Why couldn’t every traffic sensor in the city work for me? Why can’t I touch every data point and then shape it the way I want it?

Tie hot location data to this. Imagine the bus tells me it’s coming. The subway lets me know I’m only a few minutes from my next possible opportunity. Imagine the opt-in of individuals who want to meet other types for business meetings, who want to connect with other members of their self-proclaimed groups.

Before we even get to marketing, we have dozens of gorgeous interactive possibilities. What would this city do for you? Do you see the Minority Report, or potential?

The Internet of Place is here: we just haven’t hooked it up yet.