Act Calumet: Reactivating abandoned properties in the Calumet Region

Calumet Collaborative and IIT Institute of Design invites you to a presentation and discussion on Act Calumet: reactivating abandoned properties in the Calumet region. The presentation will introduce the results of the Sustainable Solutions Design Workshop 2019 (SSDW), a graduate-level course offered by the Institute of Design sponsored by Fidelity Labs and Hitachi.

After years of disinvestment, a patchwork of abandoned industrial, commercial and residential properties has been left behind in the Calumet region. Current ownership systems are based on property rights that protects the owner, and prevents local residents from intervening on these sites. These models lead to inadequate solutions for re-injecting resources and life into those properties in a sustainable manner as they rely on external agents with specific interests engaging in slow and bureaucratic processes, usually with high value being lost through multiple transactions. However, if local residents could be empowered to reactivate these abandoned properties, then living conditions and their surroundings could be improved. So, could the Calumet region.