How might we empower residents to build local capacity, strengthen their local economies, enhance self-governance and improve their actions through a lens of sustainability and systematic approach?

INTRODUCE

Act Calumet

Activating abandoned properties for regional development

Act Calumet is a part of the project 'The Future of Brownfields', is an ongoing collaboration between IIT-Institute of Design and the Calumet Collaborative.

The collaboration examines how might Design contribute to sustainable (re) development of the Calumet region.

In its third phase of the partnership, the collaboration advances these micro-pilots by iterating and refining the infrastructures prototyped in phase two and co-designing alternative models for scaling up implementation and impact.

Check out previous documents.

PHASE 1_CONTEXTUAL REPORT

PHASE 2_ACT CALUMET

PHASE 1_FINAL DEISGN BRIEF

To better understand the project, please prepare yourself with the glossary.

OVERVIEW

The Calumet Region is dotted with brownfields

The Calumet region is a post-industrial area, with approximately 900 square miles, home to over 70 municipalities. The region’s boundaries encompass the Southeast side of Chicago, South Cook County and Northwestern Indiana in the United States. This bi-state territory is not only large but incredibly diverse.

It suffers from some socio-ecological challenges, like environmental contamination, lack of economic interest, dispersed human and social capital, and unproductive manufactured capital.

Abandoned properties are on the rise

After years of disinvestment, a patchwork of abandoned industrial, commercial and residential properties has been left behind. Additionally, the more properties are abandoned, the less occupancy in blocks. When communities are weaker, the number of crimes tend to rise, which furthers reinforces the reduced occupancy of the block, or worse, the abandoning of the property. A significant challenge relates to the fact that current ownership models are based on property rights that protect the owner and prevents local residents from intervening on these sites.

ANALYSIS & SYNTHESIS

What's beneath the surface of abandoned properties?

The class used System Dynamics Map to explore the reasons. (SDM is a systems thinking tool useful to visualize the multiple variables shaping and influencing the behaviors of the system being analyzed.) By engaging with several individuals and organizations from the Calumet region, researchers were able to identify several variables (humans, networks, cultural, financial, built, governance, digital, and ecological) influencing socio-economic conditions that are critical to be considered when understanding how properties are abandoned, and what it takes to reactivate them for sustainable regional redevelopment.

In the diagram, barriers to change are represented by the variables that have a large number of inflow arrows as they require multiple types of resources from different variables. Drivers of change are represented by the variables that have a larger number of outflow arrows as they exert greater influence on other variables in the system.

What's going on now? The upcoming rise of the new economics

Rapid and interconnected socio-technical ecological shifts are disrupting existing production and consumption systems. The underlying connectivity and confluence of these shifts shape the way that humans interact with one another, and with their surrounding environment. Increased computational capacities, the growing application of sensors, new digital communication platforms, data collection systems, and other mechanisms provide instant feedback on aspects of human daily life, global market dynamics, and the natural environment. In this blurred and ubiquitous landscape, organizations and institutions are adapting to emerging marketplaces, novel sustainability-centered policies are being designed to reduce the speed within which the climate is changing. and new social contracts are being created as a response to the unsustainable and inequitable practices that organizations and current systems of governance are locked in.

Because disruptive technologies are enabling alternative pathways to be explored, leveraging their affordances in the context of the Calumet region became critical to understand how might design contribute to transitions towards new economies. On the diagram, a few of the many trends are clustered in three categories: new marketplaces, digital transformation, and climate change. These trends are indicative of the multiple disruptions happening in social, computational, and economic systems, and are giving rise to new economies.

GOAL

The overall goal of this workshop is to explore if the introduction of new technologies, infrastructures, including digital platforms, and emerging financial services aiming at decentralizing power could provide alternative avenues to empower local residents towards reactivating abandoned properties and vacant land in the Calumet region.

QUESTIONS TO THINK

How could new infrastructures decentralize access to properties?
How should they be incorporated into daily choices and enable more sustainable and equitable livelihoods based on alternative financial systems?
What technologies would empower residents to take action in the Calumet region?

Rethinking a regional redevelopment problem

By exploring the complex challenges underlying abandoned property redevelopment in the Calumet region through new lenses, researchers were able to uncover several social tensions influencing reactivation processes. These include but are not limited to financial stagnancy, centralization of power, short-term profitability, and segregation.

Once these tensions were challenged, new questions could be raised, and alternative conceptual infrastructures were explored. On one hand, the questions presented below are not meant to be exhaustive; rather, they serve as an indication of new possibilities for leveraging the underutilized and under-realized assets available in the region. On the other hand, the conceptual infrastructures resulted from the early stage exploration centered around several fundamental challenges of diversity, inclusion, and equity embedded in the very nature of the current market and economic structures. Combined, these efforts enabled researchers to uncover five actionable properties that guided their work: activating, investing, training, tracking, managing.

ACTIVATING

Bringing new activities and opportunities to abandoned or vacant spaces

INVESTING

Instilling belief in the region’s long-term potential through contributions of money, time, effort, or energy

TRAINING

Equipping residents with new skills and expertise

TRACKING

Monitoring people and places to ensure safety, identify opportunities, and recognize good work

MANAGING

Coordinating efforts across the region

OUTCOMES

FRAMEWORK

Sustainable Solution Strategy

All solutions created in the workshop should be considered as interventions that simultaneously work not only to integrate multiple systems, but also to interconnect multiple levels (macro, meso, micro). The combination of three levels is to form a system of solutions for long-term, sustainable redevelopment.

MACRO

Portfolio of Interventions

By incorporating the five actionable properties uncovered during the research (Activating, Investing, Training Tracking, Managing) into structured ideation processes and prototyping activities, researchers were able to propose conceptual infrastructures that challenged current approaches to reactivating abandoned properties in the Calumet region. Combined, they can unlock the territory towards more sustainable and equitable futures. Recognizing that these are not representative of the multiplicity and diversity of potential futures, the interventions were designed to be speculative and to prompt new ways of going about intervening in the Calumet region.

The goal for an equitable regional development includes

Strengthening Local Economies

A strong local economy is evidenced by generative calumet businesses and external business partnerships

Improving Life Outcomes

Improved life outcomes are evidenced by civic engagement, public services, and environmental remediation

Enhancing Self Governance

Self governance is evidenced by stronger tenant-owner relationships, community lead programs and public-private partnership

Local capacity is evidenced through expertise development and job satisfaction

Building Local Capacity

MESO

Understanding The Envolved Agents

Three key players are at the center of our proposed interventions: Residents, Property Owners, and Investors. These roles are not exclusive but represent three distinct functions in our system.

A resident is anyone who lives in the Calumet region.
Property owners own land or residences. They may occupy their property, or they may rent it out to others.
An investor is anyone who allocates resources (e.g. money, time, effort, energy, among others) towards the longevity of the region. These individuals may or may not live in the Calumet region.

Through the five actionable properties, these agents are activated in different ways, consequently creating, extracting, and delivering different types of value.

Stakeholder Map

MICRO

Alternative Pathways For Regional Redevelopment

Concept 1: Repurposing

Owners and residents receive incentives for repurposing vacant lots and abandoned sites. There is an infrastructure that tracks the type of exchanges and businesses happening in that space.

Accessible Identification

The Calumet Card is a form of local ID that can be issued with flexible forms of verification.

Pop-Up Infrastructure

A wind-powered card reader grants Calumet residents access to vacant lots. Motion-activated cameras allow the landowner to safely monitor activity on their property.

Chip-enabled

The Calumet Card can be used like a credit or debit card with local vendors.

Connection Map

Anatomy Map

Value Web

Concept 2: Building Skills

Residents receive on-the-job training to strategically fix local properties. Compensation is flexible and can be directed towards immediate needs, mid-term, or long-term goals.

Smart Monitoring

A sensor-enabled drone assesses properties using built-in temperature, humidity, and air quality sensors along with a camera and GPS.

Crowd-sourced Expertise

Residents can contribute and check out task-specific toolboxes from a shared locker.

Individualized Content

AR (artificial intelligence) glasses guide workers through tasks at an individualized pace. Tools embedded with haptic sensors provide real-time feedback.

Job Matching

Artificial intelligence identifies and suggests job opportunities to workers with the appropriate skills.

Connection Map

Anatomy Map

Value Web

Concept 3: Liquidity

Residents with a proven track record can access funds in advance of completing a job to pay off burdens like parking tickets. Calumet Coins left to grow over time can be spent on a future date.

Encrypted

Blockchain technology ensures that the identity and activity of Calumet Cardholders are protected.

Flexible Access

Access Calumet Coins in advance of completing a job to meet immediate needs.

Connection Map

Goal Setting

Accumulate more Calumet Coins over time by diverting earnings towards mid-term and long-term goals.

Anatomy Map

Value Web

The Design Process For Ivy: From Scratch To Full Concept

After a few sites visits and secondary research, my team uncovered one of the key social dynamics happened in south-side of Chicago, as well as the Calumet region, which was "gentrification". When the economy crashed, unemployed Calumet residents started to struggle with daily expenses, some of them managed to survive, but the majority of them had to move to a more affordable place to live. As Calumet consistently losing its population, local business stagnated so as the dynamic of the community, as a result, fewer job opportunities provided for the residents because the region had lower business value to investors.

So my team started to focus on "gentrification" by building a concept of "co-evolving", make the residents in Calumet region co-evolving with the place.

First Round Prototype

What's our goal?

Concept: Co-evolving
Make people in Calmet co-evolving with the place.
Control the speed of gentrification so that we can prepare/ make the people living there more robust when facing gentrification.

What's our hypothesis?

Gentrification can be good for the community.
It has the internal and external booster, speak to internal, we think the population has something to do with the potential of gentrification. If few people live in that area, which means low new business opportunity which may less likely to attract the outsider to invest in this place.
Few things need to be done to qualified this place to attract gentrification.
Co-evolving should start from the place instead of people.

What's our solution?

There are lots of vacant properties, some people don’t have a place to live, Orgs acting as the bridge who have a line of people waiting for the affordable house but have a limited budget to afford more houses.
Bring outside money source to buy the share of the abandoned property for Orgs so that they can provide more houses to homeless people, which bring the population to the whole area.

What're the features?

Investing
Crowd Funding
Smart Contract
Blockchain

After runing our prototype in the field, here were the key takeaways we learned.

In general, the locals have limited knowledge of financial investment.
$1 is not just one dollar, it’s about trust and commitment.
Responsibility means burden, "landlord" had a negative association.
It’s hard to change people’s mindset that you can do investment anywhere instead of banks. (The needs for professionals and credibility.)
Traditional financial services were not designed to accommodate the diverse needs and aspirations of current residents of the Calumet Region.

Second Round Prototype

In the second round, we focused on the communication of the "investing" service to the locals. How might we communicate & attract people to invest in this abandoned property, especially for those who have limited financial knowledge?

At the meanwhile, we re-designed our concept as "personal bank- every property has a banking system of its own", the door could not only giving access to the inside of the building but also access to initiate an investment.

Using NYC subway kiosk's information architecture as a reference, we designed our interaction screen.

Go to the link to see our low-fidelity prototype.

Information Architecture

Third Round Prototype

A new team formed to focus on "investing" as I was signed to develop the "managing" concept. Building on the previous work, the new team named concept as "Ivy", and here is the link of mid-fidelity interaction prototype.

The Design Process For Dom: From Scratch To Full Concept

After four actionable concepts (training, tracking, investing, activating) were uncovered, the whole class as a team felt a need to develop a management platform as a part of the systematic approach to the redevelopment of Calumet

region. A new team was formed to tackle this challenge, within three weeks, we were able to fully develop the "managing" concept; identify key infrastructures- Calumet card, a sensor-enabled mobile robotic monitor, and platforms for individual use & regional management use; build prototype-dom.

First Round Prototype

At first, the team identified different usage scenarios that would include four concepts, and some of the key technologic affordances (like blockchain, smart contract, etc). By doing this "envision the future" exercise, the idea of a sensor-enabled mobile robotic monitor started to emerge.

Second Round Prototype

In the second round, the team focused on building the prototype and using Forum as a concept testing opportunity to test it out with the invited stakeholders.

As part of our communication plan, here were the key identified values:

Value to the government/broader community

Map the entire region; Better understand the condition of neighborhoods and particular properties so that decisions can be made about where to focus efforts

Value to the property owner

Improve the condition of your property with little direct involvement
Proactively address issues before they become catastrophic
New liquidity: Access the growing value of your property without having to sell it

Value to external investors ($$)

$$: Get returns on investment without the financial burden of owning a property alone
See the full history of a property before investing

Value to skilled workers

Find employment opportunities (gig economy)
Build credit record history

Third Round Prototype

Speculative Dashboard_Regional View

Dashboards as parts of the management showed result from speculations about how data would showcase the desired objectives: strengthening local economies, enhanced self-governance, improving life outcomes, and building local capacity. The data is imagined to originate from multiple sources, such as, the different infrastructures that facilitate a multitude of interactions at the individual, property, city and regional level.

Strengthening Local Economies

A strong local economy is evidenced by generative calumet businesses and external business partnerships

Improving Life Outcomes

Improved life outcomes are evidenced by civic engagement, public services, and environmental remediation

Enhancing Self-governance

Self-governance is evidenced by stronger tenant-owner relationships, community lead programs and public-private partnerships

Building Local Capacity

Local capacity is evidenced through expertise development and job satisfaction

Speculative Dashboard_Individual, Property & City View

Individual Profile View

This provides a stark contrast to how an individual is currently viewed. For example, Lisa is currently viewed as a single mother, who is an immigrant and unemployed. However, through this new system not only is she able to engage productively, but there are also new forms of value available to her to buy and sell in this new marketplace

Property Profile View

This provides a stark contrast to how a property is currently viewed. For example, public school needing repairs are seen as a liability. However, through this new system, the property itself has a voice and is reframed as something that generates value for the community

City Profile View

This is a speculative view of the city’s profile in this system. This is to emphasize the value gained by the city if they collaborate with Calumet in this initiative

Data Flows

This is a depiction of how one micro-level action at the individual level, comes to inform different metrics that sit in different dashboard views at the aggregate level.