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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Fighting for Space in Mexico City:

Verónica Crossa examines street vending and the struggle over public space in Mexico City, asking what happens when efforts to regulate and “improve” the city collide with the livelihoods and everyday practices of the people already using its streets.

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Closer with Carol Coletta and Mark Wallace

Closer is a conversation about the strategies that make cities social – and why that’s the smartest investment in the urban toolkit.

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Setha Low

Anthropologist and urban scholar whose influential work explores public space, culture, access, belonging, and the ways social and political life are embedded in the built environment.

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Kathy Madden

Kathy Madden was a co-founder of Project for Public Spaces and one of the pioneers of the modern placemaking movement. For more than four decades, she helped turn the careful observation of how people actually use public space into practical tools that communities around the world could use to make better places.