Ask HN: What has happened to YC's residential development research project? - baybal2
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RubenSandwich
They are still their slowly plugging away at projects:
[https://harc.ycr.org/](https://harc.ycr.org/).

Edit: You haven't heard from them because they are aiming very high so it will
take years before any of their work hits the general public.

Edit 2: From my understanding, they are still working on their Universal Basic
Income Research as well and have chosen Oakland as the testbed:
[http://basicincome.org/news/2017/04/httpswww-youtube-
comwatc...](http://basicincome.org/news/2017/04/httpswww-youtube-
comwatchvttnrz26u9sifeatureyoutu-be/).

~~~
baybal2
Do you have any contact with them?

~~~
RubenSandwich
Nope. I just follow Bret Victor, who is in Y Combinator Research, very
closely.

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Entangled
Ok, here is a cheap shot of a dream. Future cities like mega malls with a
thousand shops facing inside and a thousand homes facing outside, one to one.
Roads would be marbled floors and cars would be electric scooters with a
basket enough to buy groceries around.

For those who like the outdoors, just get your off road vehicle and face the
indomitable and untouched nature. No paved roads, no concrete, nothing outside
these habitable malls interconnected by hyperloops. Of course there will be
supply roads for trucks but they will be just like highways interconnecting
mega farms to mega malls.

Nah, scratch that, there is nothing like a house in the suburbs with a huge
yard and a barbecue.

~~~
hucker
I could hardly imagine a worse dystopia.. If I somehow ended up as a dictator,
my only decree would be to ban malls.

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simonebrunozzi
Sam Altman spoke about it recently: [https://medium.com/the-naked-founder/sam-
altman-on-yc-univer...](https://medium.com/the-naked-founder/sam-altman-on-yc-
universal-basic-income-trump-new-cities-1da15a18129d)

AFAIK, Ben Huh is still in charge of the project.

~~~
shalmanese
We're letting the cheezburgers dude redesign the future of cities?

~~~
simonebrunozzi
I know what you are saying... However, I met Ben Huh and I think he's a
capable individual. When he joined, he took the "job" for six months. Not sure
if he will continue to work on it. No updates from the YC folks on that
matter.

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raphman
Two weeks ago, Jonathan Edwards [1] announced on Twitter that he left/leaves
HARC [2] but didn't elaborate on the reasons.

[1] [http://www.subtext-lang.org/AboutMe.htm](http://www.subtext-
lang.org/AboutMe.htm) [2]
[https://twitter.com/jonathoda/status/871784998113882118](https://twitter.com/jonathoda/status/871784998113882118)

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charris0
I dream of cities without cars!

longer distance travel via electric cars is fine, just give me a city without
the cacophony, polution and general obnoxiousness of traffic.

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Kinnard
Did you mean the New Cities Project?

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erikj
What do you expect from it?

~~~
baybal2
Just curious to see findings. I'm very enthusiastic to see the issue getting
more coverage.

I used to have a lot of interest in architecture and design. When I first came
to North America, I was surprised by disfunctional urban planning, and even
more so by the fact that very few Americans were giving any concern to that.

~~~
hueving
Car culture is so big in the US that outside of the few cities with really bad
traffic problems, nobody cares about sprawl.

The vast majority of everyone's experience of public transportation is shitty,
slow busses and commuter trains with limited schedules and stops that you
drive to. So cities that force you to use public transit sound really
unappealing to people that haven't experienced something like Tokyo.

These two factors are why Americans don't have much concern about urban
planning.

