This Group urban design research project approaches Chicago through the lens of systems theory by treating Chicago itself as a thermodynamic system with various internal, inward, and outward flows of energy and material. 

By Synthesizing our studies of Chicago’s Data, Fauna, and Mobility systems it became clear that Chicago’s public virtual and physical infrastructure are contemporary selective services. It also became clear that the postindustrial landscape of Pilsen Industrial Corridor restricts intellectual capital and mobility invoking socio-economic disparities in adjacent neighborhoods. 

The studio proposal for mending these situations is begins with an initial private-public investment in the corridor that re-purposes vacant land and buildings with low income jobs and regenerative sustainable power generation, simultaneously regenerating the tainted soils and increasing income
for neighboring communities. Next, cheap energy to the corridor stimulates private investments in manufacturing, and public investment in a riverfront trail, and educational buildings within the corridor. 

Next, excess land from modern light industries is re-purposed as parkland and selective
residential developments occur within corridor serving local labor. Then with additional tax income the city invests in public libraries, schools, roads and a CTA stop within corridor that deteriorate the corridor’s depth. This additional mobility and data access further develops offices, education, commercial and residential within corridor.