# Building new, better cities

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com) · 2016-06-27

affordable-housing, cities, city-builder, city-building, developer, development, housing, real-estate, research-project, san-francisco, silicon-valley, software, tech, toronto, transit, transportation, uncategorized, urbanism, y-combinator, yc, zoning

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Earlier today my friend Saadat sent me the following tweet:

> [@donnelly\_b](https://twitter.com/donnelly_b) you need to apply to this: [https://t.co/NrYmO1D1ge](https://t.co/NrYmO1D1ge)
> 
> — Saadat Qadri (@saadatqadri)
> 
> [June 27, 2016](https://twitter.com/saadatqadri/status/747477478508138496)

[//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js](//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js)

It’s a link to a new research project by [Y Combinator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Combinator_\(company\)) – the famed Silicon Valley seed accelerator. They want to explore the possibility of building new and better cities.

I don’t have the time for something like this, but if any of you are city experts (I know a lot of you are) and you’re based in or willing to be based in San Francisco (I think they are flexible on this), you should absolutely consider [applying](https://jobs.lever.co/ycr/03b226d0-148e-4ecd-a5f0-3e6074251eff) to be their full time “Cities Researcher.” The deadline is July 30, 2016.

Here’s a taste of what they are [thinking about…](https://blog.ycombinator.com/new-cities)

> **_There are many high-level questions we want to think through, for example:  
> _**
> 
> _\- What should a city optimize for?_
> 
> _\- How should we measure the effectiveness of a city (what are its KPIs)?_
> 
> _\- What values should (or should not) be embedded in a city’s culture?_
> 
> _\- How can cities help more of their residents be happy and reach their potential?_
> 
> _\- How can we encourage a diverse range of people to live and work in the city?_
> 
> _\- How should citizens guide and participate in government?_
> 
> _\- How can we make sure a city is constantly evolving and always open to change?_
> 
> **_And there are tactical questions we want to dig into, for example:_**
> 
> _\- How can we make and keep housing affordable? This is critical to us; the cost of housing affects everything else in a city._
> 
> _\- How can we lay out the public and private spaces (and roads) to make a great place to live?_
> 
> _\- Can we figure out better zoning laws?_
> 
> _\- What is the right role for vehicles in a city?_
> 
> _\- Should we have human-driven cars at all?_
> 
> _\- How can we have affordable high-speed transit to and from other cities?_
> 
> _\- How can we make rules and regulations that are comprehensive while also being easily understandable?_
> 
> _\- Can we fit all rules for the city in 100 pages of text?_
> 
> _\- What effects will the new city have on the surrounding community?_

The convergence of city building and tech is something that I’m deeply interested in. I also think it’s inevitable. And I think that Toronto – thanks to our robust real estate industry – is in an ideal position to be a leader in this space. So I would love to see someone from here take on this job.

But even if you’re not from Toronto, you should still [apply](https://jobs.lever.co/ycr/03b226d0-148e-4ecd-a5f0-3e6074251eff) because it’s an exciting initiative :)

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/building-new,-better-cities)*