This is the third of a multi-part series about the critical role of tech in enabling a more affordable, equitable and better New York City, including responding to an adversarial Federal government. Post #1: Why this moment demands a tech movement. Post #2: Cities under siege: the massive increase in burdens. Shared on LinkedIn and Medium.
We are a group of experienced technologists creating a blueprint that we believe New York City must have. We are not affiliated with a political campaign. Interested in following our work? Join us.
As we wrote in our first post:
Progressive cities face a seemingly impossible equation: deliver more services with fewer resources while under direct federal attack, and simultaneously fill gaps left by deliberate federal withdrawal from basic protective functions. Success will rely on technology, more than ever before. Technology isn’t just another policy area but the fundamental infrastructure through which all government functions operate.
If New York gets this right, we create a blueprint for every progressive city in America.
Fail, and watch ambitious progressive promises collapse under the weight of inadequate systems, providing ammunition for those who claim bold policies can’t work.
Where Vision Starts: Human Rights
Every New Yorker should have the fundamental right to a life with dignity: affordable, housed, healthy, with clean air and water, great education, living wages, digital access, and a responsive government. These rights have been delivered to too few and are at risk from a hostile federal government.
New York’s vitality comes from our embrace of difference. It’s our obligation to keep all our residents safe, with access to a life with dignity. We are a sanctuary not only for undocumented and noncitizen people, we are also a sanctuary for LGBTQ+ people and women seeking reproductive freedom. When they come to New York City for freedom and safety, our government has an obligation to enable services access while providing privacy and security.
Building Our Own Technology
New York City must start building our own technology to achieve this vision. When we talk about technology, the goal isn’t just better technology. Technology is more than code, more than software, more than computers, or networks, or cloud, or AI.
We are highlighting another dimension of technology, technology as a way of thinking. The measure of success isn’t how innovative the technology looks — it’s whether the thinking enables working families to afford rent, access childcare, and ride free buses. The delivery system serves policy goals, not the other way around. The question isn’t whether the system is cutting-edge, but whether it gets help to families who need it.
Technology gives leaders freedom to solve problems, to reach mission alignment and to create a culture of innovation. The goal is to use the freedom that technology provides to reimagine what city government can do for working families
Supports an empowered leadership to make bold policy proposals
Enables a refreshed vision of city government centered on working families
Motivates the organizational transformation needed to support this
Learns from other models in other cities and internationally
Adapts to changes in the economy, technological shifts and Federal policy
NYC Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani’s primary victory creates the political opening. [Post #1]. Federal hostility creates the urgency [Post #2]. And we believe that highly qualified and mission-aligned technologists will step forward to join and contribute to the movement remaking governance in New York.
The time for vendor dependency has passed. What we don’t need is more of the same outsourcing government technology to large corporate vendors. Now is the time for cities to create their own vision, culture, and delivery systems.
This vision demands more than policy reform. It requires organizational transformation that changes how city government thinks, operates, and delivers. It’s also about a “back-to-basics” approach, taking control of their own destiny by delivering on a government that just works for every New Yorker. Technology is only part–and a critical enabling part–of a holistic delivery system.
Traditional city government too often operates from a scarcity mindset: limited resources, competing priorities, incremental improvements. Residents are too often supplicants asking for help. City workers can be gatekeepers protecting scarce resources. Technology is a cost center that automates existing processes.
The ideal vision flips this entirely. The current moment demands a more proactive government and technology is the bridge. Government becomes a partner in residents’ success, not an obstacle to overcome. The city’s job isn’t just to provide services — it’s to create conditions where families can thrive. Technology becomes the infrastructure that makes ambitious promises achievable at the speed and scale New York demands.
This isn’t about doing government better. This is about doing government differently.
The Organizational Transformation
Delivering on this vision requires more than hiring a few technologists or launching digital initiatives. It requires organizational transformation that changes the culture, incentives, and operating model of city government.
“Possible” Leadership Mindset
Traditional city leadership often operates from a zero-sum mindset: every dollar spent on housing is a dollar not spent on education. The Possible mindset says we can have both. Every new program should not require cutting another program. Innovation is risky; the safest path is incremental change.
The new leadership mindset starts with possibility, not impossibility. Because New York City has it, however poorly distributed. If we were our own country, New York City’s economy would rank 13th globally. The city has resources, talent, and economic power to deliver on ambitious promises.
Resident-Centered Culture Change
The culture we need centers resident outcomes above bureaucratic process:
Experimentation becomes normal, with rapid testing and iteration based on what actually works for families
Failure becomes learning, with systems designed to capture insights and improve quickly
Feedback from residents and frontline workers drives decisions, not internal politics or vendor preferences
Cross-training builds resilience, so no single departure can break critical systems
Transparency becomes the default
This culture change can’t only be mandated from above — it has to be built through hiring, training, incentives, and leadership modeling.
Structural Changes Centered on Delivery Teams
Traditional government separates policy, technology, and implementation into different silos. Policy teams create ambitious agendas without understanding technological constraints. Technology teams build systems without understanding policy goals. Implementation teams get caught between impossible promises and inadequate tools.
The new structure builds integrated delivery teams that combine policy expertise, technical capability, and implementation experience:
Prioritize People Over Bureaucracy: Focus on problems and solutions in a collaborative environment. Bring the relevant stakeholders to the work, including residents, frontline workers, legal and regulatory, and finance to jointly conceive buildable solutions that start with pilots that iterate based on results.
Policy-Technology Integration: Policymakers work directly with technologists during agenda development, not after promises have been made. Technical feasibility informs policy design, while policy goals drive technical architecture.
Labor Collaboration: Municipal unions become partners in technological transformation, not obstacles to overcome. City workers who understand current system failures help design better solutions.
Consider what this vision could look like in practice.
Housing: While the city builds more housing for working families, imagine if we made residents’ lives better, easier and less stressful by transforming the current system. Imagine a city where affordable housing applications take days not months, where residents can track their status in real time. The city becomes a partner in residents’ housing stability, not a gatekeeper of scarce resources.
Healthcare: Instead of navigating disconnected systems and falling through cracks, imagine healthcare enrollment that connects to vaccinations, childcare subsidy, and housing assistance. The city understands that health isn’t just about medical care — it’s about having stable housing, adequate food, and support to raise children.
Economic Opportunity: Instead of small businesses drowning in red tape, imagine a city that views entrepreneurs as partners in neighborhood prosperity. Permit processes that take days instead of months. Procurement systems that streamline proposals from minority-owned and women-owned businesses in a transparent process. Digital infrastructure that levels the playing field instead of favoring established players.
Emergency Response: Instead of systems that fail during crises, imagine infrastructure built for resilience from the ground up. When the next hurricane hits, when the next pandemic emerges, when federal agencies abandon their responsibilities — the city can protect residents because it planned for crises, not just normal operations.
This vision requires fundamental changes in how city government operates. Not just new technology, but new organizational DNA.
The Transformation Starts Now
Technology today is more than tools, more than software and hardware. Technology encodes our values into the systems that decide who gets help, when, and how. In this moment, we must treat technology not as a technical procurement, but as a core expression of our collective will.
Yet the current systems in New York City government are too often broken. Not broken in the sense of slow-loading websites or clunky interfaces, but broken in their moral failure to deliver for working families. Systems built through fragmented contracts and decades of technical debt create delays, deny dignity, and actively deepen inequality. They are the digital equivalent of shuttered storefronts and pothole-ridden streets, only less visible, and far more dangerous.
If we believe that every New Yorker has the right to affordable housing, clean air, good schools, and safe streets, then we must recognize that human rights cannot be achieved through broken delivery systems. Rights without infrastructure are just promises. And technology is the infrastructure that helps make those rights real, fast, and fair.
The logical conclusion is clear: we must bring technology in-house. We must build delivery teams, not procurement plans. We must cultivate a public-sector tech culture that matches the speed and scale of our needs. In-house technology is not only about insourcing code. It’s about insourcing courage, creativity, and control. It means having teams ready to respond in real time to crises, to iterate with communities, and to align every technical decision with our highest public values.
Mamdani’s victory opened the door. Federal abandonment turned the urgency into an imperative. Now the responsibility falls to us: New York’s technologists, builders, public servants, and residents. The transformation isn’t theoretical. It starts now — with the people who step forward to make it real.
The time for vendor dependency has passed. The time for cities building their own vision, culture, and delivery systems is now.
We are a group of experienced technologists creating a blueprint that we believe New York City must have. We are not affiliated with a political campaign. Interested in following our work?