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.

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Veronica Crossa

Verónica Crossa is an urban scholar whose work explores public space, street vending, informality, and inequality in Mexico City. Her research asks what happens when efforts to “improve” public space collide with the livelihoods, relationships, and everyday lives of the people already using it.

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Susan Stryker

Stryker is the author of Transgender History, a widely used introduction to the political and cultural history of transgender communities in the United States, and co-director, with Victor Silverman, of the Emmy Award-winning documentary Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria. The film helped recover the history of a 1966 uprising by transgender women and queer people at Gene Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco’s Tenderloin—one of the earliest documented acts of collective queer resistance to police harassment in the United States.

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Reclaiming your Community

Majora Carter argues that communities facing persistent poverty need talent-retention strategies just as businesses do. Building from her maxim that no one should have to leave their neighborhood to live in a better one, she offers an approach to community development rooted in keeping local talent and opportunity.

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Bronxlandia

Bronxlandia is a cultural hub and multi-purpose live events venue located at 910 Hunts Point Avenue in the South Bronx, New York City. Created by community developers Majora Carter and James Chase, the space serves as a creative local venue addressing the borough's shortage of dedicated performance spaces.

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