Cara Courage is a researcher, author, educator, and internationally recognized placemaking practitioner whose work explores the intersection of people, place, culture, and community. In this conversation, she joins Chip to discuss the evolution of placemaking, the growing field of trauma-informed placemaking, and how places can foster, healing, and connection.

What makes people feel connected to a place?

In this episode of Sidewalk Ballet, Chip explores the idea of “Return on Emotion” with downtown strategist Molly Alexander — examining how joy, belonging, trust, shape the emotional life of communities.

Featuring a conversation with Santa Cruz Warriors President Chris Murphy and a reflection on an iconic Bay Area moment this episode explores the power of emotional connections to place and community.

In downtown Los Angeles, the Social District may have found the perfect face for a neighborhood: Pico, their beloved canine mascot and “Chief Experience Officer.”

In this Small Block, Chip talks with Nolan Marshall about mascots, place identity, community connection, and how a little joy can help make a big city feel human-scale.

Downtowns sit at the intersection of public life and private interest — places where questions around trust, safety, belonging, and authority become deeply visible.

In this episode, Chip talks with Shane Zahn of the Minneapolis Downtown Council about the evolving role of Business Improvement Districts, public safety, and civic stewardship in downtown Minneapolis.

Together, they explore what it means to build trust in public space at a moment when communities increasingly experience safety, authority, and accountability in very different ways.

In this New Year’s episode of The Sidewalk Ballet, Chip is joined by Josh Yeager of Bright Brothers Strategy Group, a thoughtful practitioner and generous champion of community work, to talk about what he’s seeing on the ground across cities right now. That conversation anchors a broader reflection on the season, translating guests’ hopes for their cities into practical, local practices — simple ways of showing up, working together, and strengthening community where it actually happens.

In this episode of The Sidewalk Ballet, we sit down with Kady to talk about placemaking as practice and possibility. From Placemaking class to her on-the-ground experience building community through culture, she shares how storytelling, celebration, and showing up shape the way we live together. It’s a conversation about creativity, access, and the small, artful moves that change the feel of a city.