The Sidewalk Ballet Field Guide

The Sidewalk Ballet Field Guide is a growing collection of people, organizations, projects, books, ideas and ongoing conversations about cities and the people who shape them. It grows out of the podcast, but extends well beyond it—connecting the people doing the work, the places where it’s happening, and the ideas, experiments and resources worth carrying forward. Think of it as part reference library, part trail of breadcrumbs: a way to follow the conversation wherever it leads.

Explore by type, browse alphabetically or by date, or search for something specific. Follow the tags to discover connections—or explore the map to see where the people, projects and ideas in the Field Guide take us.

Chip Chip 10/27/26 Chip Chip 10/27/26

NeighborSpace

Chicago's NeighborSpace land trust protects community gardens from development while empowering neighborhood groups to manage and steward shared green spaces as urban commons.

Chip Chip 9/15/26 Chip Chip 9/15/26

Morgan Berman

Morgan Berman is a Philadelphia-based entrepreneur and community leader working at the intersection of technology, civic life, and social impact. She is the founder of Glitter, a neighborhood-based street-cleaning platform that enables residents and businesses to collectively fund recurring litter removal while creating paid local jobs. Her work explores community agency, public space, and a deceptively simple question: when something needs doing in our cities, whose responsibility is it?

Chip Chip 8/25/26 Chip Chip 8/25/26

Color the Curb

Color the Curb is a joint agency project between DDOT, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (CAH), and DC Public Schools (DCPS). Color the Curb is a subset of DDOT's Arts in the Right-of-Way (AROW) program, which supports designs that transform intersections into works of art to increase the safety and visibility of pedestrians while adding visual interest to the area.

Chip Chip 6/15/26 Chip Chip 6/15/26

Coop’s Soup

Coop's Soups is a community-focused social enterprise and ministry founded by pastor Cristin Cooper in Olney, Maryland. It uses locally sourced, vegan, and gluten-free soups packaged in reusable mason jars to fight loneliness, build local connections, and support a participatory dinner church gathering known as Soup Church.