The Sidewalk Ballet

Evan Weissman - Warm Cookies of the Revolution

To close out Season One of The Sidewalk Ballet, we turn to a conversation about showing up.
Across cities everywhere, civic engagement has become increasingly distant — shaped by professionalized systems, complex processes, and a sense that participation is reserved for those who already know how to navigate it. For many people, the question isn’t whether they care about their city, but whether there is a meaningful way to be involved.
In this season finale, Chip sits down with Evan Weissman, founder of Warm Cookies of the Revolution, to explore what civic life can look like when the invitation is wider, more human, and rooted in joy. For more than a decade, Warm Cookies has created spaces where people can engage with public issues not as experts or insiders, but as neighbors — lowering barriers, building confidence, and reminding people that participation is something you practice, not something you earn.
The conversation touches on civic engagement as a skill that strengthens with use, the importance of local spaces as places to try, learn, and belong, and the role of humor and play in making participation feel possible again. The episode closes with a reflection on the season as a whole, weaving together voices and ideas from across twelve episodes to arrive at a shared understanding: cities are shaped not just by plans and policies, but by the people who show up for them. Civic life works best when more people see themselves as part of it.
 
Episode Links
Warm Cookies of the Revolution
Big Creative Consulting
Erika Chong Shuch

Breonna McCree - Transgender District

San Francisco’s Tenderloin has always been more than its headlines.
Long treated as a containment zone, it has also been a refuge — a place where marginalized communities found belonging, built culture, and made public life possible in spite of neglect, oppression and disinvestment.
In 1966, that history erupted inside a cafeteria at Turk and Taylor. The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot is often told as a single night of resistance. But like most movements, it began long before that moment — and it didn’t end there.
Today, the site of that uprising is owned by one of the largest private prison contractors working with ICE. Which raises a complicated question: what does it mean to honor a place if you don’t control it?
In this episode, Chip speaks with Breonna McCree, Co-Director of San Francisco’s Transgender District, about what it means to move from being tolerated in a neighborhood… to claiming it. The conversation weaves together history, policy, art, and activism to explore how cities remember — and who gets to decide what stays.
The Transgender District is a formally recognized cultural district in the Tenderloin, created to honor, protect, and sustain a neighborhood that has long been a center of transgender life, community, and resistance. Breonna and Chip explore what a district actually is and does, how this particular place came to be named, and why formal recognition matters, how neighborhoods carry history long before they’re officially acknowledged, and what it takes to turn lived experience into lasting civic infrastructure.
 
Transgender District
 
Susan Stryker
Compton’s Cafeteria Riot
Tenderloin Museum
Screaming Queens
Tenderloin Community Benefit District
Glide Memorial
Crossroads of Turk and Taylor
Comptons x Coalition
TurkxTaylor Initiative
Miss Major
SF Black Wall Street
 

Lezlie Lowe - No Place to Go! - Episode 10

In this episode of The Sidewalk Ballet, Chip is joined by Lezlie Lowe, journalist and author of No Place to Go, for a wide-ranging conversation about one of the most essential—and most ignored—elements of city life: public bathrooms. What begins as a seemingly simple question about access quickly unfolds into a deeper exploration of gender equity, disability access, public health, privatization, and dignity in public space.
Drawing on research and reporting from cities around the world, Lezlie traces how historical decisions, cultural norms, and policy gaps have shaped who gets to move freely through a city—and who has to plan their day around the nearest restroom. Along the way, the conversation touches on gender parity and the “urinary leash,” access for unhoused neighbors, the absence of legal requirements for cities to provide public toilets, and the growing role of private businesses and BIDs in filling a public gap. From Tokyo’s carefully designed public restrooms to Vienna’s human-centered approach and San Francisco’s Pit Stop program, this episode reframes bathrooms not as an afterthought, but as a powerful lens for understanding how cities care for the people who use them.
We also Visit Portland Maine and talk with Cary Tyson about Portland Downtown’s Public Bathroom Master Plan.
Plus we grab a burger in a converted Bathroom with Curious Claire.

Dr. Christine Brooks - Expressive Arts Coaching and Community Building

Dr. Christine Brooks is the founding chair of the Masters in Expressive Arts Coaching and Community Building, a new program at the California Institute of Integral Studies, that blends creativity, leadership, and social impact. With a background spanning coaching, the arts, and community practice, she and her colleagues designed the program to prepare students to meet the challenges of our time — cultivating leaders who can navigate complexity with imagination, empathy, and resilience.
Through this innovative curriculum, Dr. Brooks helps students explore how artful approaches to leadership can strengthen communities, deepen collaboration, and foster personal and collective transformation. Her work is rooted in the belief that coaching and community building are not separate disciplines but intertwined practices essential for justice, wellness, and belonging.
Dr. Brooks talks with Chip about coaching in the expressive arts, community leadership and the science of friendship.
 
Also in this episode:We talk with Leva Zand from ARTogether, a small but powerful organization based in downtown Oakland that works with immigrant and refugee communities through art-making. Founded in response to moments of fear and exclusion, ARTogether creates spaces where people can gather, make things together, and build connection without pressure or performance. From open community sessions to youth programs and public art projects, their work treats art not as an end product, but as a shared practice—one that helps people feel seen, supported, and connected in a world where belonging is often contested.
 
Episode Links
Expressive Arts Coaching and Community Building
Arts and Health
Role of Arts in Health and well being - WHO report
Neuroarts Blueprint
Science of Friendship
Effortless City
ARTogether
Eventbrite Trends

Foresight for Cities - JT Mudge

As a new year begins, we take a moment to look at the future.
This episode features two fascinating conversations. First we talk with Futurist JT Mudge about how understanding changes helps us imagine, design, and prepare for the cities of tomorrow. Then Seattle based historian, Feliks Banel, highlights how the lense through which we imagine a future can shape the world of tomorrow.
JT Mudge is an award-winning futurist passionate about sustainability, ethics, and ancestral futures. He holds a masters of science in foresight from the University of Houston, where he is an adjunct professor teaching foresight and change theory. He currently serves as a Senior Strategic Foresight Advisor for The United Nations Development Programme.
The ideas and opinions JT expresses in this conversation are his own, and do not necessarily reflect The University of Houston, the UNDP, or any other organization JT is affiliated with.
Feliks Banel is a Seattle-based historian, radio producer, and longtime contributor to public radio, where he specializes in Pacific Northwest history and civic memory. His work often explores how major moments—like the 1962 Century 21 Exposition—continue to shape the identity, culture, and physical landscape of Seattle today.
(Extended conversation with Feliks available here)
 
JT Mudge
United Nations Development Programme
Metropolis
The Toynbee Convector
Feliks Banel - Cascade of History
Seattle Worlds Fair
Downtown Seattle Association

New Year's 2026 with Josh Yeager, plus Resolutions for a more connected city

In this New Year’s episode of The Sidewalk Ballet, Chip sits down with Josh Yeager — a deeply thoughtful placemaker and one of the most generous champions of this work — to talk about what he’s seeing on the ground right now. Not in theory, but in real places, with real people.
Josh brings a wide lens shaped by years of practice and support for others doing this work, helping surface the patterns, tensions, and quiet shifts that don’t always make headlines — but that say a lot about where cities are headed.
That conversation sits within a broader reflection on the Sidewalk Ballet season so far. Drawing from conversations with guests including Karen Christensen, Jay Pitter, Nate Storring, Kady Yellow, Majora Carter, and others, this episode translates big hopes for our cities into everyday practices — the small, local actions that actually shape community.
Josh Yeager
Starkey Strategies
Streets Department
FIFA Cities

Placemaking with Youth - Mara Mintzer and Urban Design Forum Fellows

Cities are often shaped by experts, policy, and process.But what happens when young people are trusted to help lead the work?
In this episode of The Sidewalk Ballet, we explore what cities can become when youth are treated not as voices to consult, but as collaborators to trust.
Part One: Child-Friendly Cities, with Mara Mintzer
We begin in Boulder, Colorado with Mara Mintzer, co-founder and Executive Director of Growing Up Boulder, a nationally recognized leader in youth civic engagement and child-friendly city practices.
Mara challenges a core assumption of city-building: that children are future citizens, rather than current ones. Through partnerships with city departments, schools, and community organizations, Growing Up Boulder has helped young people shape master plans, parks, transportation systems, and public spaces across the city.
Mara is also co-author of Placemaking with Children and Youth: Participatory Practices for Planning Sustainable Communities, a practical guide for youth-centered civic engagement.
Part Two: Youth-Led Libraries of the Future — NYC
The second half of the episode shifts to New York City and a team of fellows from the Urban Design Forum’s Forefront Fellowship Program.
Through a six-month, youth-centered research project, the team explored a simple but powerful question:What could a library be if young people helped design it?
Working with teens across Manhattan and Brooklyn—including at the High Line and the Free Black Women’s Library in Bed-Stuy—the team built a process grounded in trust, collaboration, and care.
A Shared Thread
Across Boulder and New York, a common lesson emerges:youth don’t just offer opinions — they offer clarity.
They help us see cities not as systems to manage, but as places to belong.
This episode is an invitation to rethink who we listen to, how we design, and what becomes possible when we trust young people to help shape our shared spaces.
 
Mara Mintzer
Mara Ted Talk - How kids can help design cities
Placemaking with Children and Youth
Child Friendly Map
Child Friendly Cities
Youth-led Libraries of the Future
Zine Archive
High Line Fellows: Emerging Leaders Program
The Free Black Woman’s Library
Ayana Smith
Claudia Dishon  
Donelle Wedderburn
Nichole Aquino
Rajesh Sankat 
 

Jay Pitter - Public Joy is as Urgent as Justice

Urban planner, author, and placemaker Jay Pitter, MES joins The Sidewalk Ballet to talk about her forthcoming book Black Public Joy: No Permit or Permission Required. Through her award-winning practice, Jay has shaped national city-building conversations and led equity-based projects across North America.
Her work begins with one radical premise: that public joy is not a luxury, but a human right. Jay challenges us to reimagine how cities are built, governed, and experienced. Together, we’ll explore how Black joy operates as both resistance and restoration; how the spaces we design can either stifle or sustain belonging; and what it takes to create a civic culture rooted in care, connection, memory and shared delight.
 
JayPitter.com
Black Public Joy
evas.ca
 

Kady Yellow - The Power of Community in Place

Kady Yellow is an international Placemaking expert who has been activating public spaces since 2010, when she first discovered the power of collaboration among governments, communities, and the cultural sector to create vibrant, people-centered cities.
In this Episode, Chip and Kady discuss her path, teachers and lessons that brought her to the work she is doing in Jacksonville, Florida, as the Vice President of Placemaking and Events for Downtown Jax.
Kady shares her strategies for connecting citizens to civic life and reducing barriers, both for residents and municipalities, allowing for a greater sense of ownership and belonging in the places she - and fellow Florida residents work.
 
Episode coming November 18th
Also in this episode, Chip explores Community Participation and Placemaking around a Submersible Embankment Project in Sunamganj, Bangladesh with Iffat Baki Bushra.
 
https://www.placemaking.life
Downtown Vision
How to bring your city to life | Kady Yellow | TEDxJacksonville
Cara Courage
DJ Larry Love
Eric Liu - Citizen University
Submersible Embankment Project
Zarni deVette

Project for Public Spaces at 50 and Place Governance with Nate Storring

Nate Storring is the Co-Executive Director of Project for Public Spaces, where he helps shape the organization’s strategy and leads its work in placemaking, communications, and development. Over the years, he’s been a driving force behind PPS’s publishing and research—including How to Turn a Place Around and new explorations of inclusive placemaking that expand how we think about belonging in public life.
In 2025, Nate is helping steer PPS through its 50th anniversary—a milestone that invites both reflection and re-imagination: fifty years of creating people-centered places, and a future that centers justice, connection, and resilience.
In this conversation, Nate talks with Chip about his own path into placemaking, the legacy and evolution of PPS, and the passing of co-founder and placemaking pioneer Kathy Madden—just days before the interview. Together they explore how our understanding of public space has changed over five decades, what still holds true, and how the next era of place will be defined by the complex realities of place governance and the ever-shifting boundaries between public and private space.
Also in this episode, Abra Allan revisits an innovative exploration into coexistence in public spaces developed in 2020 by SPUR and Gehl.
 
Episode Links
https://www.pps.org/people/nathan-storring
http://www.nathanstorring.com/
https://www.placemakingweek.org/
https://www.urbanspacegallery.ca/
https://www.spur.org/publications/spur-report/2021-01-25/coexistence-public-space