I really enjoyed seeing some of the people that I knew were from that neighborhood come out and experience Cascade Road in a different way. And it was good to see some of the families come out and have some leisure time and be able to interact with their neighborhood in a way that like I said, at the beginning of the call that they don't normally get the chance too, because its such a busy thoroughfare. And also because it's a place where between the grind of going to work, going to school X, Y, and Z, you never stop to think, "Okay, how beautiful is this neighborhood in this street?" And the history that's on this street is so important to black Atlanta as well. So for me, I always respect... Like the hashtag says respect, cascade. And you think about, it's a very strong community there that is under assault in some ways, but also was very strong and has lots of resources that are there. And I think in many ways, if partners could look at those neighborhoods like that and think about, "Okay, what are the strengths of this neighborhood and how can we build upon those particular strengths that exist here and then rather than figuring out, "Okay, what's lacking here? How do we meet that lack?" But more so how to we be with working here and how can we contribute the most working here? I think that'd be a cool way to think about different initiatives in this particular neighborhood and similar ones like it.

I would probably go and figure out what are the times and places of any kind of community organization that meets like at a community center, if it's group of elders in the neighborhood, if it's some bingo players, if it's a church that has something recreational for kids to do, I'd figure out, "Okay, what institutions are within the neighborhood first?" And then just go visit and show up. So for example, doing research in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina, it was really about going to churches and meeting people in church. And then from there snowballing it to, "Okay, now I met you at church. So now I'm going to get an invitation over to your home for dinner or something or a barbecue." And it just rolls into that. That's how we do our work. It's network-based, but you create a purposive sample of this. That means, you're trying to go to a particular place trying to find 10 people. And then from there, it becomes a snowball sample of, "Do you know someone who you think would be good to bring into this program or talk to about the particular topic."

I think part of the approach, particularly from anthropology and cultural anthro, and so it's always... I know that for science and big science, the idea is to scale up. How do you scale this up. I think for us, we like to scale down a bit and think about, "Okay, on the level of the neighborhood, on the level of the community, I didn't think about institutions that are meaningful to a wide variety of people that live in these neighborhoods. So I think for example, you have to figure out what your approach will be to understanding what the community is and what the politics are in the neighborhood. I think if you go to churches, for example, you'll get one perspective from going to different churches. If you go to different public schools, for example, the different perspectives on what the neighborhood is and what it means, what the limits are of that neighborhood. But I think generally it's just the way to tap into a neighborhood or community is a slow process and it only happens with the same engagement. There's no checklist on best practices, there's no real easy way to do it. But I will say that by putting in that time with particular neighborhoods and institutions within neighborhoods that I trusted within those neighborhoods, it pays [inaudible] dividends for you when it's time for a big event like this, because people will want to come out and want to support. Because they know that you've been there for more than just a particular event. From my perspective, and do a research in neighborhoods events similar to this and being from this neighborhood, I think going through some of the key churches, maybe on Sunday and when they have the announcements part of church, just being there and talking to the congregation and saying, "I'm from this organization, they're doing X, Y, and Z, we'd love some input from the community. If you want to talk to us [inaudible] and that can help keep the ball rolling. In that cliff neighborhood churches will be central to doing that. But I think, figure out what the solutions are trusted and valued by the people who lived there. And then sourcing those to figure out, who are your key people, people who be like " Center people for you to do your work into... We've got the other folks and bring people in together to the particular event.

I think my position on it was twofold in a way in terms of how I experienced the event because on the one hand I was an observer of it in an official capacity, but also that's the neighborhood where I grew up. I told Jonathan I worked at a place that was right there. I went to that [inaudible], so that was really my neighborhood. I think I have emotional ties to the areas where it goes beyond just my observations. When I pulled up to the event and I saw everything I thought about just how rapidly that corridor is gentrifying. And I thought about how, "Wow, this really can seem like a colonial event where there's these outsiders who are coming in and they block the entire Cascade Road. Even though there was a big turnout of people who were from the neighborhood, there was a lot of turnout for folks who are not from that part of town. And probably have never been to that part of town before who were there for the event. So I think that on the outside looking in, not knowing the event...outside of Atlanta, just the Streets Alive initiative itself. I think that the way it flat down in that neighborhood, as somebody who's from there it read to me like, "Wow, okay, they're gentrifying this neighborhood. It's like a pilot test for, "How do we make this street more safe?" Because now they're justifying Café Corridor because that intersection has been dangerous. I didn't even know it though, because I never heard anybody say that before. But apparently it's been dangerous for a long time and nothing's happened all these years and now would it be different by and Belt Line is right there. Now Street Alive comes and now you have this cycle Atlanta Fest. And because I'm outside the neighborhood, I'm not coming. So it can read like, "Oh my God, these are outsiders coming in and what are they doing here?" And that was my initial emotional response to the event.

Well, two things I would say that I've learned along the way through some fits and starts is always when chatting with people, and if they're open and interested as you're wrapping up the conversation and setting up a time to talk more, it's always ask, "Who else should be a part of the conversation?" And let them think a little bit about what other entity or group just like Justin was doing, who would be interested. And then see if they're willing to make that introduction. Because a lot of times I'm not the right person to go into a community and start trying to reach out, but finding people who are willing to be a part of it is great. And then the other thing that the whole term of "reaching out" is loaded. Like I noticed, and I fall guilty of this. When I say I talked to someone, I'm mind typing with my fingers, which means I emailed them. And did I email them? Did I show up? Did I find a time that was convenient for them? And again, you probably did all this, but I think it's important to think about, and to document that building those relationships, there's a lot of shiny objects that get dropped into different places and then they disappear and go away. So sometimes thinking about how much you can actually show up and show up in person, which I think the currency of in-person has gone up as much as the currency of digital and perhaps even more so. So I think getting into the right meetings and thinking about the different neighborhoods, communities, community leaders, stakeholders, organizations, non-traditional beyond the cultural institutions, like informal learning places, but certainly your churches and community centers are big. So thinking through some of those places and finding those connectors, is really key. And I'm probably not saying that anything you don't know, it's just who goes to bandwidth? Because you try it with one and then get pulled away on 17 other projects and initiatives. So being really intentional and committing to it, is key.

How do you know that someone's really the right person to be speaking to and not just the person that happens to be willing to speak or lonely? Well, I think that's a cool strategy because I think that when you come into a new place, the person that most likely would talk to a stranger is the person that's more gregarious and that's more outgoing naturally. So I think that keeping that in mind, knowing that, "Okay, this may just be the one person that nobody wants to talk to. That's why they're so willing to talk to me." But also just talking to that person and seeing their personality and seeing what they say about the neighborhood, how they feel about the neighborhood, how they [inaudible] back into the neighborhood. And then I think that's how I come to turn up, is this just an outsider or an insider? Based off of their connections, the depth of their experience within the neighborhood, and also how they feel about their neighborhood, because folks who are passionate about their neighborhood, those are the ones who I really want to talk to. Those are the ones that have the memory of the neighborhood. Keeps a memory of wherever they are, and they can give you the insights into who the key players also. The ones who are really passionate about, "I'm from this neighborhood. I'm from here, I love this area." The whole respect cat cable, for example, I think those are key people that can be reached out to. And you're going to say, "How can an event like this work in this particular neighborhood?" Or, "How do we align our aim with your aim?" It's like this is the best event possible.

When you first are asking you start to realize that you're going to be demanding so that you will asking somebody for a chunk of their time and for their attention and for them to build something of a trusting relationship with you. What is important to you in going into that relationship? I think Being honest and just being upfront about the fact that I am an academic and this is helping me to get my dissertation and this is actually helping my career. It's helping me financially doing this project. So I can't act as if it's just for the love of the research topic. And of course I'm passionate about the issue, but also this helps me... This is my job, my career. So I think being honest about that and thinking about what my goals and aims were and trying to make their relationships feel as least exploitative as possible. That's what I just try to do. Because I know there's an imbalance in terms of resources from off the top. I just try my best to mitigate that by just being honest about it and also just doing what I say I'm going to do for people being on time and showing up in those key ways, and having that face time with them. I think that's really the only way because people have to decide whether they want to trust you or not. And I think they can only decide that after getting to know who you are and say, if you're consistent and you show up and you're honest, I think that lets people start trusting you and then they want to support you from that point forward. That's been my experience. I love how these conversations tend to go. They get deep and thoughtful and often times some of the answers as you get deeper, start to sound very straightforward. Show up on time. That's thinking that actually... I think behind that is a humility in a sense of your place in the relationship. I agree with you, Ben. That's why I do it.

I think it's the layers that become complicated when we try to integrate an event. It feels like a problem sometimes with the festival also where we're like, we want to go and we really want to have a wide swath of geography of our giant city covered, but we have to find people who are engaged around the big city and who are excited to do this work so that we're not just slapping a thing into a place that wasn't already interested and engaged. We want it to evolve organically. And as you say, that takes time. But I do think that's definitely one of the challenges when you're bringing your thing into somebody else's events and the assumptions that you make about how they're doing their events can be complicated.

It's a very complicated. It felt complicated obviously from the beginning., one of the things that struck us as we started looking at trying to think about organizations, we went through the math and really tried to look at all the businesses so that we could talk to the people at the businesses to see if they wanted to be included. We wanted to talk to people about the science and put science facts at the different restaurants. And then all of a sudden I was like, "It's Sunday." As I made a map and a list of the businesses that were on the route, 75% of the businesses are closed. Which I felt like, "Did anybody think about that?" Like you're not necessarily even benefiting the businesses that are there by choosing to do it on a Sunday versus a Saturday. And maybe that's more complicated with closing the road and whatnot, but I do think that there was just inherent... And obviously, this is a bigger conversation of which we, I feel like would always like to do our part, to participate in it in a way that is productive and while also being aware. It felt like the whole enterprise was itself complicated and we had to figure out how to be part of that. But I think also living in a city like Atlanta that's part of the way things happen. And we're really eager to figure out how to participate in the changing nature of what's happening in Atlanta. But to do so in a way that's a little bit more conscientious and we certainly were very aware of that as we got more and more involved.

I think the other layer here is the whole thing with, it sounds to me, and just because I'm the outsider. So tell me to shut up, is the whole issue of gentrification with that part of Atlanta. And so the Streets Alive event coming there's an undercurrent to all of that, that you're tangentially just swept up in a little bit, with this event. So even if you were doing some of that, if you met a few eye-rolls or some guarded folks, I think that would make a lot of sense from their perspectives. So you have to... You were thinking about that too, but I do think it's important to maybe discuss a little bit of that for this effort

I wonder if there might be a way to build those connections, I think if there's a way to team up with organizations and see ways to make this something that's usually beneficial. So it's not like we're just volunteering and giving a bit of time to this event, but are there certain partnerships that can be built that can extend beyond particular events, and is beneficial to them? Maybe it's probably about just figuring out, particularly in a neighborhood where the resources aren't as bountiful and people are stressing in terms of capital, resources, time, energy. I think about ways that maybe partnerships can be made, it's usually beneficial so the people don't feel like, "I'm going out and giving out my time on a Sunday, when I could be at church. Or I could be doing something else with my family." Where they feel like, "No, I'm doing this because I'm getting from it as well, I'm not just volunteering and get getting more side effects of doing this, but I'm helping to advance my organization, or my classroom or something like that, in some way." Maybe that could mitigate that feeling, "I'm always asking people to do something." But in fact we can just build a relationship and go from there.

it turns out, that's a huge struggle for them too. So I guess part of what I am really interested in trying to pull apart, as this is a learning experience, is this tension between being an organization that can think globally and curate something that is really well integrated because we can think on that global scale. But at the same time, really trying to dig deep into the community and get people excited and motivated to come out and think with us about how to participate in that. So that it really does strike both of those

I think the theme that I keep coming back to is this idea of layers. I keep thinking about that. How there's just a lot to unpack with the ambition of this event on top of the ambition of the event itself on top of the historical cultural context of where it was. So it was really cool. And where I'd start though is actually just thinking about science festivals in general and public science, because as I was coming in this late driving into town, I was just flipping through radio stations and being reminded when you're in a big city, you get a lot of radio station options, while I'm thinking about this big festival event I'm going to, and everything on the radio was about the Atlanta Falcons because they had a home football game and then I parked and rode the train in and it's packed with people wearing Falcons jerseys. And I'm just reminded about how in big metropolitan areas, how much competition there is for people's time and attention. And I know the Atlanta Streets Alive thing is a big deal. But I would be surprised how many people on this train had any idea that was going on. And then to get out into the neighborhood and see it start to set up, was really, really cool and exciting from my perspective. And then I was really interested to meet Justin knowing what his research and expertise was in. So just the setup of it and the ambition of it, was really, really intriguing and compelling to me.

So one of the things we've noticed, for the people who may listen to this later, I work in North Carolina and I work on a statewide dispersed model of a science festival. I'm not even sure if we can actually be called a science festival, but we'd call ourselves that and Ben lets us do that. But we play a lot around with the space of bringing science content into non-science events and spaces and trying to build meaningful partnerships. So I was really curious to see this and how it played out. And one thing we've learned from our experience sometimes our presence can be a little bit jarring in that you're at for example, Northeastern North Carolina, there's something called The Potato Festival. And I thought there was some natural tie to sweet potatoes and there's no historic... They wanted to sell French fries. So they created this potato festival. So we hadn't done a lot of homework about what this event was. We just knew it was a big event. It's like a giant street carnival there's rides, there's vendors. And we're like, "Is it cool if we bring some science content?" So we had like three tenths of scientists come out to lead hands on activities. And we noticed right away that as people were walking up to it, it was just out of place. They were looking at it like a local realtor who's talking to them about how they can buy houses in the area and getting a business car. The next place is like a juice station. They can get a Turkey leg and then it's like, "Hey, do you want to learn about the exoskeletons of bugs?" And like, "What? Why do I want to do that?" So we learned that we needed to have some buffer stations or change the style of interactions because it felt out of place and it wasn't even customized to the event itself or to the people that would be at the event. There's one thing I would say that I do want to separate from the actual what was happening at these specific stations. But going along the route that Justin and I walked, and we walked the whole thing, it seemed like an entirely appropriate style of thing to happen at this big cycling event. So all the SciCycle stuff, the branding was on point, the fact that it was a place for people to hop off their bikes and do something hands-on or interact or look around, all seemed to fit really well with the overall vibe of the event itself, which is casual and informal and family friendly. So that's what I meant about how it was woven in. It didn't feel forced. It hit the right tone. And then some of the booths, the one that stood out that Justin and I, we've talked about a few times, there was one, a mechanical engineering group, a math group up near Hank Aaron Boulevard, I think was doing an activity that was right... The theme was about wheels and how important it is this things to be round. So like the activity itself was really appropriate for the style of event that the people who were attending it were expecting to see. So that's more what I meant about how well it's integrated into the overall event, this scavenger hunt felt. And I got to eat ice cream, which was good too at a science station.

we constantly just feel like we're always asking people, we want to highlight the science of these organizations. We want the community to know that this is what's happening in their backyard. But what that means is that we asked them to come do stuff. And it always feels... And while what we're trying to do is call attention to the work they do, but that requires them to come out on a Sunday and set up a booth. And we offered to pay for people's materials. Like we tried to make it as easy as possible, but you still have to find people who are willing to stand in 98 degrees on the street, in the middle of the afternoon, on their Sunday. And it just is always this hard thing of, how do you make that sell? How do you get people excited to do that? And to not just constantly... I just feel like sometimes we constantly come up against this thing of feeling like we're always asking people to do things, even though what we're asking them to do is get before 50,000 people so that people can know that this is happening. But it is that tenuous balance always of feeling like we're asking something of them and we know that people are just so, so busy.

So I think in some ways, success is just figuring out how to have a real moment of engagement with a new organization or a new partner, with a new institution that feels meaningful. That feels like it serves their mission, which thereby serves our mission and that it feels like it's a relationship that means something. And that then potentially, has room for growth. And then sometimes I feel like those things feel so small and we have goals and as success markers and this is something we're all obviously struggling with too. It's like when you run a festival that reaches 60,000 people, it sometimes feels like not as meaningful to say that you had a really great several long hour event with 10 families. But I also think that, it's doing a little bit of different work.

think a little bit more about what's already happening and what are the ways that we can amplify what's already happening instead into what's already happening, as opposed to thinking more about, "How can we help you meet the next goal?" But rather thinking on a longer timescale, how can we help you do what you're doing next month, as a way to develop the partnership and the trust, and an understanding how you operate on a day-to-day basis or how you are readier during your public events or your family science nights or whatever to integrate there before moving to the next piece which is not necessarily the way that I had... It's certainly the way we... I come to understand how people are doing their work, but I don't necessarily try immediately to think about how to support them in the immediate future, but rather how to help them move to the next phase. And I think part of what I'm pulling away from this conversation that's really, really useful is how can I help you do the next thing that you already have on your calendar? And how can I make that easier for you as we develop this relationship? Before we try to turn that into something that's much bigger

I reached out to all these different groups. And there were a lot of people that either wouldn't respond. And I felt very sensitive as far as like, "Hey, I'm a stranger, can you do a favor for me?" I'm trying to build this relationship. And I felt excited at the fact that at least coming out of this, we developed a lot of relationships that I think we can build meaningfully and work on something together in the future.