This is the third of eight articles in the Investing in America 2024 special report that will publish in full on Tuesday 10 December To Daniel Ryu, there are few places more quintessentially American than Kokomo in Indiana. The birthplace of the automobile, the Midwestern city is a factory town, where unions are strong, and locals abide by a “you buy what you build” mentality. “This is like real America,” Ryu says, seated on the upper floor of the First Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
“It feels like a new era,” says Lori Dukes, chief executive of Greater Kokomo Economic Development Alliance, sitting in her office, a former GM building. Paul Wyman, Kokomo’s county commissioner and real estate developer, puts it more succinctly: “Forbes got it wrong.” Kokomo has been helped by Indiana’s economic development agency, which offered Starplus $363mn in incentives and has recruited Korean investors for years before the Starplus deal was finalised.