D.C.'s downtown drives city's population growth

More than half of D.C.’s roughly 30,000 new residents over the past decade chose to live in the city’s downtown core as development there boomed, attracting scores of urban professionals, a new analysis shows.

A total of 17,768 — 62 percent — of the city’s new residents during the 2000s are living in Washington’s downtown, which encompasses Columbia Heights to the north, the Capitol Riverfront to the south, Georgetown to the west and Capitol Hill to the east. About 8,700 chose to live in more outlying areas in Northeast or Southeast, while the small remainder — about 2,100 people — chose the wealthy neighborhoods of upper Northwest D.C., according to a new report by the city’s Office of Revenue Analysis.