After decades of economic stagnation, population decline and recurring political scandals, the District of Columbia is undergoing a renaissance as young people flock to the nation’s capital, making it the country’s fastest-growing city. Among the new residents are Josh Saltzman and Trent Allen, both 25-year-old graduates of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, as respectively, aerospace engineering and classical languages majors. They drove to D.C. last January during a snowstorm in a surplus Postal Service truck to start a business.

The duo spent two months of grueling 12-hour days in an unheated Midwestern garage retrofitting the truck with water lines, a sink, a stove and a generator.

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