It's us.

This city has taken a real hit, and the recovery won't look like what came before. But we don't have to build from nothing. DC already holds a remarkable concentration of policy minds, nonprofit builders, researchers, social entrepreneurs, and people who came here on purpose, for purpose. The opportunity is to turn that talent into more businesses, jobs, and investment — and to build the reputation that attracts more of it.

Who our people are.
The industries we grow.
The jobs we create.
The talent we attract and keep.

Economic development works when those reinforce one another — and when growth creates opportunity for the people who actually live here. Right now extraordinary people are in roles beneath their capability, or quietly interviewing elsewhere, while the world bids for them.

Payrolls, leases, exports, room to scale. Local doesn't mean small. These companies won't replace what the federal contraction took — no single sector will. But DC has a concentration of purpose-driven talent and institutions no other city can claim, and an identity worth building on is an opportunity hiding in plain sight.

You can't retain talent into jobs that don't exist yet. New economies get built by new companies, which makes the rate at which people here start and grow them one of the numbers I'd watch most closely. A city that celebrates incorporation and then watches every successful company leave hasn't built anything. Innovation isn't a word — on the ground it's spaces, capital, and the distance between an idea and a first customer.

Government, philanthropy, business, and community each hold a piece of every problem worth solving, but no one naturally owns the whole. Building the room — and the shared ownership to keep it moving — is much of the work.