Like many East Chicago neighborhoods (including Roxana and Marktown), the residential part of Calumet is surrounded by industrial land:[1] the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal to the west, the Chicago Avenue industrial corridor to the north, a Citgo tank farm to the east, and the DuPont site and USS Lead site to the south.

Calumet was, for decades, one of the only neighborhoods in East Chicago to welcome African American residents, along with New Addition and North Harbor.

Reduction to the north, a series of lead refineries including International Smelting and Refining Company and Eagle-Picher to the west, USS Lead and Grasselli Chemical Company to the south, and the Cities Service oil refinery to the east.

The neighborhood's residential boundaries correspond to Operable Unit 1 of the USS Lead Superfund Site, which was designated in order to address environmental contamination from these industries.

[4] In 2016-2017, Calumet lost more than 1,000 people, approximately a third of its population, when the city government abruptly closed the West Calumet Housing Complex after it became public that soil samples from the complex contained more than 90,000 parts per million of lead.