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 9/14/26 Chip Chip 9/14/26

Antanas Mockus

Antanas Mockus is a mathematician, philosopher, educator, and former mayor of Bogotá who used mimes, humor, symbolism, art, and social experiments to explore a radical idea: that cities can intentionally cultivate how citizens behave toward one another.

Chip Chip 9/10/26 Chip Chip 9/10/26

Urbanists on Bakfiets Talking Cities

Urbanists on Bakfiets Talking Cities is a video series from urbanist Lior Steinberg that puts city conversations literally in motion. Inspired by Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Steinberg invites fellow urbanists aboard a bakfiets—a Dutch cargo bike—and rides through cities while talking about streets, mobility, public space, and how cities actually work. The moving conversation makes the city itself part of the interview: ideas can be encountered, questioned, and demonstrated as they ride. The series launched with Tactical Urbanism co-founder Mike Lydon exploring Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Chip Chip 4/28/26 Chip Chip 4/28/26

Jane’s Walk

Jane’s Walk is an annual festival of free, community-led walking conversations inspired by Jane Jacobs.

On the first weekend of May every year, Jane’s Walk festivals take place in hundreds of cities around the world.

Chip Chip 4/13/26 Chip Chip 4/13/26

tamika l. butler

tamika l. butler (she/her or they/them) is a doctoral student in Urban Planning at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs. Her research employs a critical race, historical, legal, and policy-based approach to examine how transportation policy and infrastructure have been used to segregate, isolate, and prevent the mobility of Black and other historically oppressed groups of people.