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publications | Economy

Creating an environment of growth and opportunity in the District

June 18, 2025
  • Yesim Sayin

On June 18, 2025, Executive Director Yesim Sayin submitted testimony to the DC Council Committee of the Whole on the proposed Fiscal Year 2026 budget. Her testimony previews findings from an upcoming D.C. Policy Center report on resident and business demand for D.C. Download a pdf version of the testimony here.

Good morning, Chairman Mendelson and members of the Council. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Yesim Sayin and I am the Executive Director of the D.C. Policy Center, an independent nonpartisan think tank advancing policies for a growing, vibrant, and compelling District of Columbia.

My remarks today are grounded in a review of revealed preferences—where people live, where businesses choose to locate, where jobs are created, and where capital flows—to assess the District’s post-pandemic competitiveness and attractiveness. The D.C. Policy Center is about to publish a report on this topic and the evidence shows that demand for D.C. is weakening across multiple dimensions, and that the city must embrace structural reform if it is to remain economically robust in a changed landscape.

The Problem: Declining Demand and Structural Headwinds

The District’s growth has slowed down. Resident population growth has been driven almost entirely by international migration—which is at risk of being cut off by federal action. Private sector job creation has stalled and the public sector is losing jobs. Since the pandemic, more of the region’s workforce is locating and working outside of D.C. Business interest has waned in recent years. Investors are cautious. The traditional engines of economic expansion—federal government presence and centralized office demand—no longer provide the momentum they once did.

Put plainly: growth-by-acquisition, the model that drove D.C.’s last two decades of economic expansion, is less of a sure thing and can no longer be taken for granted. The combination of remote work, federal spending realignment, and increased regional competition requires a fundamentally new approach.

The Response: A Shift to Abundance and Organic Growth

The District must adopt an abundance agenda centered on supply expansion, reduced policy friction, and organic economic development. Rather than attempting to predict or subsidize the next growth sector, the city should focus on building a policy environment that maximizes the chance that growth can take root naturally. To implement this vision, we offer four broad strategies:

  1. Create Abundance Through Supply Expansion: Unlock housing and service capacity by modernizing zoning, streamlining permitting, and reviewing regulations that increase cost and complexity.
  2. Make Job Activity Growth a Central Goal: Incentives matter more now for D.C. given our economic distress. However, rather than focusing on sectors of promise, we should target our tax incentives to high-multiplier, export-based firms that would buy in D.C. and sell elsewhere.
  3. Adopt Competitiveness as a Core Policy Lens: Require economic impact analysis for regulatory and tax changes. Create clear, reliable processes that reduce friction for doing business.
  4. Use Acquisition Strategically: Attract firms and talent when gaps cannot be filled through organic means.

Policy Priorities

To operationalize this approach, we recommend the following actions:

  • Housing Abundance: Legalize multifamily development in more of the city, streamline the Planned Unit Development process, and modernize TOPA to reduce uncertainty while preserving tenant protections.
  • Workforce Alignment: Tie economic incentives to partnerships with job training programs rather than rigid local hiring mandates.
  • CBE Program Reform: Taper CBE eligibility over time to encourage broader market competition and reduce reliance on city contracts.
  • Competitiveness Governance: Establish a D.C. Competitiveness Council to track implementation and progress and create a public-facing dashboard of performance metrics.

Final Thoughts

The question we must ask ourselves is not just whether people and businesses are still choosing D.C., but whether we are giving them compelling reasons to stay and grow here. If we get serious about abundance—about building capacity, streamlining systems, and supporting innovation—we can reclaim our status as a top-tier destination for talent, investment, and inclusive prosperity.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I welcome your questions.

Author

Yesim Sayin

Executive Director
D.C. Policy Center

Yesim Sayin is the founding Executive Director of the D.C. Policy Center.

With over twenty years of public policy experience in the District of Columbia, Dr. Sayin is recognized by policymakers, advocates and the media as a source of reliable, balanced analyses on the District’s economy and demography.  Yesim’s research interests include economic and fiscal policy, urban economic development, housing, and education. She is especially focused on how COVID-19 pandemic is changing regional and interregional economic interdependencies and what this means for urban policy. Her work is frequently covered in the media, including the Washington Post, the Washington Business Journal, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, WAMU, and the Washington City Paper, among others.

Before joining the D.C. Policy Center, Dr. Sayin worked at the District of Columbia Office of the Chief Financial Officer leading the team that scored the fiscal impact of all legislation the District considered. She frequently testified on high profile legislation and worked closely with the executive and Council staff to ensure that policymakers fully understand the fiscal implications of their proposed legislation. Yesim also has worked in the private sector, and consulted with international organization on a large portfolio of public finance topics.

Yesim holds a Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Relations from Bogazici University, located in Istanbul, Turkey. 

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