Chicago 2050: Designing Alternative Futures
Participating students: Farhan Ahmed, Ibrahim Asgharali, Eric M. Bartell, Julian Bautista, Ning Jiang, Ahsan M. Lodhika, Boram Oh, Omesh Kaushal, Jake M. Menard, Maxwell Ritchey, Miles D. Thompson, & Yujin Yang
What is it like to live, work, and visit Chicago in the future? Chicago is at the crossroads, on one hand, a leader in innovation, finance, technology, and culture, and on the other hand, violent crimes, failing schools, income inequality, and segregation. The city of Chicago has recently unveiled its vision for 2050, a comprehensive regional plan toward a preferred future. The question is what does preferable future mean, for whom, and who decides. By preferring particular realities over others, policymakers are mobilizing certain values and ideals, while ignoring other possibilities. Since the stakes are so high and every individual is impacted by the decisions made, we decided to critically reflect on the official visions that are put forward and propose more extensive, inclusive, and resilient possibilities. We are pleased to share our vision for the future of Chicago. It is an overview of a semester-long project at Illinois Institute of Technology in which students critically explored alternative possibilities and their implications for the future.
The future is an evocative concept. In The Image of the Future, Fred Polak argues that the rise and fall of cultures depend on their collective ability to imagine the future. Imagining the future is enormously powerful, yet very few of us know how to systematically and creatively explore it. Our goal is not to predict a single possibility, but to create options for the future to expand the intellectual horizon of curious minds.
To overcome the early challenge of setting the boundaries of the future, we focused on identifying voices that are overlooked in the current vision. A key asset was using local resources to inform the future, for example, a visit to Read Write Library helped us in breaking our mental constraints about who is an expert and who should have a say in shaping futures. Also, by incorporating human-centered design methods and listening to local communities, we tried to practice future-making knowledgeably and with responsibility.
Bee Hiveway
Currently, Chicago is focused on maintaining green spaces through manpower, which makes it an expensive and tedious plan to implement and manage. As a result, innovative green spaces are exclusive to high economic areas of the city that better funded and part of the city’s image. What if there was a way to create self-sustaining green spaces? This can be possible through the implementation of ecology’s non-human actors: in this case, Chicago’s bees. By considering the entire ecosystem of green spaces, upholding care for the greenery will be more cost effective and it is also an active step to protect the bee population. Million of bees are dying every year due to climate change, loss of habitat, and pesticides. We rely on bees to pollinate 71 of the 100 crops that make up 90% of the world’s food supply. Rather than being a passive observer of an apocalyptic future without fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, Chicago in 2050 takes active steps to help flourish its wildlife and to enhance the quality of life of Chicagoans as well.
Imagine Chicago in 2050 where bees are thriving and are part of a new man-made attraction called the Bee Hiveway. The Bee Hiveway is a network of green spaces and green roofs throughout the overlooked parts of Chicago that direct and track bee activity. This attraction is used by both tourists and residents to enjoy a strong harmony with wildlife and benefit from honey production. Chicago in 2050 is very popular for the honey the bees provide and this is shipped across the world. Tourists who come to see the diversified pit stops of Bee Hiveway can also leave with souvenirs which are bottles of famous landmarks of Chicago with honey in them. The bees in 2050 will also have cameras attached to them which will take videos from the bees point of view of Chicago, as a part of introducing more ways of interacting with these insects that are sometimes dismissed or given a bad reputation. These pictures from the bee point of view will also be included in Chicago’s 2050 postcards.
Pollute-Me-Not Robot
While Chicago is considered one of the greenest cities in the nation, environmental discrimination persists; South and West Side Chicagoans (predominantly lower income residents and people of color) bear the burdens of industries affecting their neighborhoods. It is largely air pollution remained from the industries of the early twentieth century. Unfortunately, children are primarily susceptible to the harm as their immune system is still developing. The effect of pollution on children is irreversible and is connected to lung cancer, heart disease, obesity, stunted growth, asthma, and learning disabilities.
Imagine Chicago in 2050 free of environmental inequality. Chicago has cleaned up industrial plants and wiped out the residual pollutants everywhere — not just in the affluent neighborhoods. The city has implemented a maintenance program which stations a synthetic, child-like dummy at community parks which detects and reports on pollutants in the area to help upkeep a healthy environment. When the dummy detects pollution above the environmental standards, it starts displaying symptoms that a child would if they were affected by pollution. Being a part of a community, when the dummy gets sick, people take action so environmental standards can continue to be upheld. Its advantageous appearance encourages interaction with children and makes use of the humanistic impulse to look out for the youth, promoting empathy between community members. In our vision, the human species will flourish by living in harmony with humans and nonhumans alike! Thus, we aim to change the narrative around invading robots that are taking over the human race to a positive storyline in which robots are protecting our children.
Vanishing Places
The city of Chicago is focused on creating vibrant communities by lowering income inequality and enhancing inclusive community services. However, it has not given any attention to preserving the essence of community staples. For example, in the vision that is put forward by the city the bright shiny buildings have unapologetically replaced those that are not commercially prospering. We all have memorable locations that we loved as a kid or adult that have disappeared and have no way of revival. Even with all of the technologies to come, there’s no plan to have a unique way of remembering the feelings of sentimentality or comfort that citizens so dearly want back.
Vanishing Places offers a time travel experience! It is a portable time capsule truck that will travel around the city and give people a chance to immerse themselves in their past. Inside the truck, visitors are immersed in a holographic simulation of vanished buildings and interact with it with all five of their senses to actually experience the past. They will also be able to chat with local people of the past to hear firsthand about the stories of the place and the gossip of the time, as if they are living through the good old days! Visitors will experience a special bond with their favorite places and could even show their children what life was like back in their day. It will be a bittersweet moment, but it will provide them with happiness, a feeling of comfort, and even some sadness. To fulfill this vision, we are inviting all Chicagoans to be a part of this campaign by submitting any valued location that you want be preserved so YOU will continue living in the future!
Vanishing People
When it comes to inclusion, Chicago has been focusing mostly on race, class, gender, and sexual orientation while leaving out people with mental health problems. The city is aware of the importance of the issue, yet it is far from being addressed in its entirety. We all know or have heard of our fellow members of society suffering from sort of mental illness, but how often have we taken steps towards truly understanding them and getting rid of any stigmas that may lie in our subconscious mind? We as a society are constantly overlooking those with mental health issues and Chicago has no plan to counter this challenge. The challenge is, according to Mental Health America (MHA), the rate of youth experiencing a mental health condition continues to rise.
Vanishing People aims to give individuals with mental health issues a platform to showcase their strengths/abilities so they could further educate the public about these issues. This platform collects films submitted by those individuals primarily made for the healthy audience and showcase them in a film festival. The festival will cover a range of mental health issues, group discussions where it will be a safe environment to discuss stigmas/concerns, and offers an opportunity for filmmakers to speak about their experience of living a life with a mental health illness. At the check-in counter, attendees will bite into an apple after which our Artificial Intelligence will quickly process their DNA to determine if they are at risk of any mental illness. Our vision is, in 2050 there will be no fear of mental illnesses, rather an acceptance by society as a whole towards these issues, so this scan will tailor their festival experience accordingly with personalized, secure reports. Instead of stigmas and concerns, we will have individuals fighting back against these issues head on with the support of their community behind them.
Finding Chicago
Popular mobility topics in Chicago News Media are discussing physical aspects of mobility including a theoretical hyperloop throughout Chicago, the O’Hare expansion, and CTA L-train extensions. In these futures, Chicago tend to prioritize investment to maintain current mobility infrastructure and aim to improve the resilience of the current infrastructure to ensure it can withstand climate change and advances in technology. While the city is emphasizing on building a future around the physical aspects of mobility, we realized that people, places, and things that are impacted by mobility are consistently overlooked. For example, with Chicago focusing on the CTA L-train extensions, small businesses and college students are being overlooked in terms of who would be impacted during the extension process.
In the primary phase of the research, we interviewed 15 students about how their lives are impacted by Chicago’s mobility options. They described their commutes as exhaustive and a wasted part of their day. They also wanted a purpose to take public transportation. We interviewed 3 small businesses as well, and they stated that shifting to e-commerce is difficult when attempting to compete with large retailers such as Amazon. Small businesses want to stay relevant. They are also looking to expand their consumer base without having to jump through complex hoops. Informed by local community, we reframed the concept of mobility. Instead of aiming for speed and efficiency to get riders from point A to point B, we envision a future possibility in which mobility encompasses exploration and opportunity for locals.
The Smart Bus bands together Chicago’s college students with small businesses by creating avenues to grow and explore in multiple ways. While on the bus, students will be taken on a trip through Chicago to multiple small businesses, depending on their hobbies and interests. While on the Smart Bus, students will wear a pin that will anonymously track their trips to these businesses as well as track the quality of their experiences while on the bus. At the end of each trip, passengers will “donate” their experience data to be deposited into a secure and locally accessible databank. The local databank provides exposure to the small businesses give small businesses information about students’ interests and, ultimately, the emerging trends. This will give the small businesses a step-up when competing against the Amazons, Googles, and Wal-Marts of the future. The Smart Bus also offers new ways of learning and adventure for students, while giving informing them about their surrounding areas.
Conclusion
Thinking about the future does not have to be centered around technologies seemingly out of this world or necessarily problem-solving activities. It can simply begin with an idea slightly different from what we know or what may be coming. Having this in mind, we tried to shift the power of setting the vision for the future from think tanks and policymakers to the hands of students. We encourage everyone, specially people in STEM, to step in the realm of the imaginative, the nonexistent, and the yet-to-come. Here are some of the students’ reflection on this exercise.
Thinking about future possibilities allowed me an as engineer to imagine a scenario that uses technology that is currently not available. It is this lack of equipment that forces us engineers to become proactive and invest our time and efforts to create such technology for the upcoming future knowing full well the benefits it holds. This is the epitome of being an engineer not only for ourselves, but for the generations to come. — Ibrahim
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Coming from a business point of view this class taught me a different way of thinking of potential business opportunities in the present by envisioning what people in the future would need. This is a pretty great exercise to use in entrepreneurship/innovation classes because in the process of creating a future for actors that were ignored we performed what entrepreneurs would: emerging trends analysis, what is currently being done, how can it be improved, learning about the potential user: what are their needs, what problems does the artifact solve, etc. It kind of like finding a niche, a segment of the population that is being ignored and designing for them. — Ahsan
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A big idea I took away from this class was thinking about what others are not thinking, which is easier said than done. This course adjusted my thinking of future possibilities from asking questions that were too trapped in the reality and possibilities of today, to trying to envision something that may seem impossible based on present day standards. Having the standards applied to a STEM curriculum could prove valuable because it encourages students to open their mind to possibilities they never thought possible. Students do not have the weight of reality to hold them down with these ideals. — Miles
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When I started to look at the future, it really opened up my entire view on how much there really is to cover in the future. It isn’t just about the technology that is going to emerge, but how everything else is going to adapt with it. While there is so much right now that is projecting the future, there are still many aspects that aren’t being focused on. STEM and other professionals should highly consider this type of exercise because while their focus may be on the present, they should also consider the future. So much of their work is on current solutions while their greatest accomplishments might come as a result of thinking about the future. — Farhan
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I really enjoyed what we discussed in the beginning of the semester, how this class is about envisioning a different future, not predicting one. Trends are interesting patterns, but can also catch you narrowing your perception — so my biggest takeaway (although we’ve all heard it before) was “thinking outside the box” as one should when considering countless futures. The STEM crowd can benefit from always remembering to look at the bigger picture than just focusing on a specialty: think about demographics, all of nature, the present and future, scope of city to nation… Don’t stick to a single narrative or timeline related to a certain innovative idea. — Yujin
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When we started the semester, it was my belief that thinking about the future was simply predicting one’s own vision for the future. However, as the semester progressed, I learned that these visions were not just pulled out of thin air, but instead based on trends and extensive research performed by experts through all these years. It was also noted, that each future idea that was thought of, had an impact on another vision of the future, envisioned by someone else. Therefore, it is very important to plan each and every aspect of our future, as it may lead to alter the idea of some other sector of the society in the future. For example, an idea developed by the team mobility could result in some changes to be made by team community in order for the two ideas to jell together perfectly. In this way, thinking about the future possibilities changed my perspective of planning for the future. Involving such exercises in STEM majors could help the students in their creativity and streamline their thought process based on current trends and if the trend continues to grow in the near future, its impact on their idea of the future. It teaches the students the concept of future preparedness and thinking of ways to alternate/adjust their ideas so that it can merge well with others’ vision of the future. — Omesh
While we’re happy with the way the class went, we, of course, were prototyping and learned so much from our first pass! We thank IIT IPRO that supports experimentation and pushing the boundaries of learning.
