I'm not sure why this got flagged... I wonder if someone misunderstood what "My hope is some defense tech drone stuff blows up..." meant.

As for

> ...remote work hollowed it out...

there's a simple solution: make it so that ordinary folks can actually afford to raise a family in the city. If folks can afford to raise a family in your city, then they're there for more than just the big paycheck, and won't run screaming the moment their well-paying job stops chaining them to an absurdly expensive city.