In May, I wrote about a friend who left DC — a family this city should have fought to keep, priced out not by rent but by the absence of the right job. That piece was about what DC should build: the industries that match our values, the neighborhoods that match our lives, the once-in-a-generation opportunity sitting in plain sight.

This piece is about something I've become even more convinced of since: who builds it. Because the answer isn't a corporation we recruit or an industry we import. The answer is already here. It's us.

DC has advantages no other city can replicate: proximity to global institutions, national power, and world-class universities and healthcare. We are a city of highly educated, hardworking problem-solvers with experience tackling major challenges.