BUSINESS FUNDAMENTALS
COMMUNITY
Impact Investing “MAKING GARY GREAT AGAIN” IS MORE THAN PROFITS AND PAYROLL
by Tom Olson
A
s many of you know, it is my professional mission to flip
dollars missing from its budget, was taken over by the state, and ultimately closed a number of the schools, it felt like a death knell for the community. A large portion of the population and a lot of the people and companies who had been investing in Gary packed up and left. It was a hard time, but in some ways, it changed Gary in ways that opened a door, decades later, for an influx of creative investing that characterizes the housing market and the Gary economy today.
of the 20th century occur, it means that area is essentially “over.” At this point, most municipalities flounder for five or six decades, but it becomes clear relatively quickly that things are bleak. Not so in Gary. Thanks to the city’s unique geographic positioning, it is poised to make a recovery from its downward spiral if community investors can envision its potential in the market. This is where impact investing comes in — and where it can work in other communities as well if there is creative investor leadership ready to take the reins. Gary needs visionary entrepreneurs to make strategic investments in the area to bolster the economy in practical and pragmatic ways
my hometown of Gary, Indiana. In the town’s heyday, the city was the second largest in the state. It was home to a booming steel industry, a diverse and thriving population, and a beautiful lakefront community on the shores of Lake Michigan. Unfortunately, Gary’s fortunes hinged on the steel industry, and in the 1960s the city started a downward spiral as the U.S. steel industry downsized thanks to competition from overseas. Gary tried to bolster its flagging economy with major construction projects but failed to reverse the decline. In the late 1990s and early 2000s when the public school system revealed it had millions of
IDEAL FOR IMPACT INVESTING
In some markets, when a series of negative events like those that hit Gary between 1960 and the end
64 | think realty magazine :: may 2020
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