Get namedtuples instead of lists from an arcpy.da SearchCursor

rowsasnamedtuples.py

import collections
def rows_as_namedtuples(cursor):
    col_tuple = collections.namedtuple('Row', cursor.fields)
    for row in cursor:
        yield col_tuple(*row)

with arcpy.da.SearchCursor(r'c:\data\world.gdb\world_cities', '*') as sc:
    for row in rows_as_namedtuples(sc):
        print sc.CITY_NAME

If you're accessing fields via tokens ("SHAPE@XY", "OID@", etc.), you'll want to make the following change since

ValueError: Type names and field names can only contain alphanumeric characters and underscores: 'SHAPE@'

col_tuple = collections.namedtuple('Row', (f.replace("@", "_") for f in cursor.fields))

there's also rename=True

If rename is true, invalid fieldnames are automatically replaced with positional names.
For example, ['abc', 'def', 'ghi', 'abc'] is converted to ['abc', '_1', 'ghi', '_3'], eliminating
the keyword def and the duplicate fieldname abc."
(ref)

at the cost of some name predictability. Both rename methods in concert could be useful.