Recommendations to Governors State University

1. Convene People in Southeast Chicago To Solve Shared Problems

Many people are concerned that there will soon be too many convening efforts in the Calumet region, taking up too much time for too little gain. Even so, many people don't know what each other are doing specifically and opportunities are missed.

Although a community Visioning process is needed, there is not now sufficient trust among stakeholders for one to be successful. An effort to share information better probably would also fail without a stronger base of trust. With the right first steps, however, a successful process might be possible down the road.

A good first step when there is not trust is to identify real, cross-cutting problems -- ones which affect the environment, the economy, jobs, and community life -- which if solved would provide a pay off to the parties involved. The key question is what is doable which many different stakeholders in the region care about and where a success will be visible and helpful to everyone and encourage additional steps to be taken? Having an activity that everyone cares about will help bring people together more than abstract discussion and enable them to agree on some specific steps even if they have other disagreements.

Try to identify something which puts the Calumet region at the cutting edge and can attract positive coverage. (Perhaps industrial development compatible with preservation of unique ecological assets or creating community jobs or state-of-the-art intermodal transportation)

The practical problems might be:

    A. Multi-modal Transportation From the dense array of classification yards, intermodal terminals, and rail rights-of-way in the region, and the convergence of water, rail, and road, how to build the most efficient intermodal transportation system which takes advantage of the growth in freight movement to maximize economic activity, preserve and restore ecological assets, and create opportunity for regional residents.

    B. Brownfields Restoration and Reuse How to create the most effective process in the U.S. to restore brownfield sites in a way which maximizes economic prosperity, preserves and restores ecological assets, and creates opportunity for regional residents.

    Key questions include how to help the City of Chicago use its funding and resources for brownfields redevelopment for the benefit of the region. How to spur the development of remediation/restoration technology and applications in the Calumet region. How to capture the value of brownfields clean up and wetlands restoration through flood control benefits, benefits to Lake Michigan from reduced contamination, recreation and tourism, material recovery, or wetlands mitigation. How to move cleaned up sites as quickly as possible to uses supported by the community. For this to work, I believe that the City of Chicago Department of Environment and Department of Planning and Development would need to willing to participate.

    C. Regional Image How to improve the Calumet region's image, both self-image and external image.

Key questions include how to publicize achievements of the past decade which are not widely known. How to enhance community identity. How to allow others to see the richness of the historical/cultural/economic development/ ecological/human assets of the region and become interested in it. How to involve residents in efforts to improve the region's image (perhaps using some of the same tools in Southeast Chicago as the Northwest Indiana Development Forum in Northwest Indiana.)

For any of these issues, it would work well to have funding up front for planning and the incentive of funding for implementation if the region comes up with an implementation plan including all of the various stakeholders.

In any case, for convening to build trust, there will have to be a co-convener who has local trust. Most people I spoke to could not easily see why GSU would want to be active in the Calumet Region. They certainly would not appreciate GSU coming in with funding for a surprise convening project. GSU needs to find one or more partners which are people or institutions of trust in the region. I have not been able to identify neutral parties, but my sense is that SCDCom has the support of a few different constituencies and would make a good partner.

2. Create Information Sharing Products Specific to the Calumet Region

Building from GSU's strengths would support the idea of using LincolnNet specifically to benefit interaction in the Calumet region. GSU might propose a partnership with CSU's GIS lab and Calumet Resource Center and the City of Chicago to provide information on the Calumet region. It might first co-convene a meeting on what people most want to know about what is happening in the region. Then it would develop a data collection plan and create an interactive web site on the Calumet region where people can, for example, access economic, demographic, and other information, post what they are doing, meetings, projects, etc. ask questions, etc. There might be separate home pages for Southeast Chicago and Northwest Indiana and linkages to other relevant sites. Participants could also be asked about their interest in creating a partnership to collect and centralize data they have on the region. This kind of data management activity could be quite appropriate for GSU, given LincolnNet, although I am sure it would require more resources. Usage might be quite low until diverse stakeholders in the region had more successful experiences working together.

3. Convene People to Begin to Develop Illinois-Indiana Relationships

At the same time, GSU might also co-convene several information-only meetings including stakeholders from Illinois and Indiana with the sole purpose of building relationships. One meeting, sponsored by the RAP/2000+ Openspace Alliance, might include environmental organizations only. The goal would be to clear the air and improve the chances for the Calumet Ecological Park proposal by getting Illinois and Indiana groups to talk about it. Indiana groups have not been consulted up until now, even though the proposal includes parts of Indiana. A planning group might include Lee Botts, Doreen Carey, Barbara Waxman, Tom Anderson and Mark Reshkin from Indiana and, from Illinois Marian Byrne, Jim Landing, Bob Kelliher, Ders Anderson, and a few others. Before pursing this idea, GSU will have to identify a local partner in Illinois and in Northwest Indiana. In Northwest Indiana, it could be Mark Reshkin from Indiana University Northwest.

Another meeting, an idea proposed by an aide to Jerry Weller, would be to bring together elected and other officials from Illinois and Indiana to talk about their initiatives which affect the region and how they might help each other. Mark Reshkin, Indiana University Northwest, and environmental advisor to the Northwest Indiana Forum, might be willing to co-convene an initial meeting pulling people from Illinois and Northwest Indiana together to talk about what they are doing and explore whether they have common interests/needs.

Tom McDermott has proposed that the South region of Chicago and Northwest Indiana compare notes and work together on education reform. Tom McDermott is particularly interested in national teacher certification, but the Northwest Indiana Forum has a broader school-to-work initiative as well.

Finally, with the goal of a 1999 bi-state conference on Calumet region natural areas to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Henry Chandler Cowles seminal ecological writings, GSU could help create a planning process now with subcommittees on ecological, historical, cultural, infrastructure, and economic assets resulting from, and which could result from, the Calumet region's natural areas.

4. Collaborate with Other Universities On Ways to Pool Resources in the Calumet Region

Because GSU is a university where leadership actively supports regionalism, GSU could set an example for reducing the balkanization in the Calumet region by spurring collaboration among universities around the theme of drawing from our knowledge and resource base to enhance the region. This is a more risky strategy than simply convening people, but it probably would be appreciated at least as much as a convening effort, if not more. I don't know if GSU has the capacity or interest to brings various educational institutions to the table. If GSU could do so, it would enhance the university's stature and encourage other kinds of collaboration which would build renewal momentum in the Calumet region.

It might be possible to get general support from Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant program or support for those institutions who don't have money to participate in a collaboration.

Themes for collaboration amongst universities were described above. In particular, there is great interest in (and need for) consortia around:

  • training for local workers, high school students, and adults with connections to local jobs.
  • new joint environmental degree programs and courses on the Calumet region.
  • a collaboration among universities and research labs to use the Calumet region as a field lab and channel research resources into the region focused on environmental restoration and green jobs, including centralized data collection.
Mark Reshkin from Indiana University Northwest would be glad to talk to GSU about collaboration among universities on environmental programs using the Calumet region as a field lab. Staff at Chicago State University, including Bill Pederman, who represents Delores Cross in RAP 2000+, might be open to proposing such a collaboration at Chicago State University.

Back to The Calumet Region - Table of Contents