My first thought about this is that, if I had a guaranteed "floor", I wouldn't have to live in a big city but could move my family to a cabin in the woods. Perhaps what YC should experiment with is something like a new Homestead Act: you'll get an economic foundation to stand on, but only if you're willing to work the land, so to speak: you have to do something with it, whether that be starting a company, writing, farming, or something else creative.

I don't have any research published in a related field, but I'm tempted to send in a proposal. Would the researcher have to live in San Francisco for this?