What we mean: Community-based regulation of space, infrastructure, and conflict through shared, egalitarian norms.

What we don’t mean: Informality as a by-product of institutional neglect, land grabs, or individualized survival strategies.

What we mean: Unregulated, often speculative urban expansion operating outside legal frameworks and without public accountability.

What we don’t mean: Traditional urban self-organization or cultural practices of collective space-making.

What we mean: Functional, often oral systems of spatial control, negotiation, and reciprocity that govern everyday urban life.

What we don’t mean: Total absence of structure or a vacuum of governance.

What we mean: Shared authorship of planning and decision-making processes, including early-stage agenda setting.

What we don’t mean: Tokenistic consultations or validation of pre-defined outcomes.

What we mean: The culturally grounded, community-driven capacity to adapt to stress without eroding identity or justice.

What we don’t mean: Passive endurance or a rationale that shifts responsibility to the most vulnerable.

What we mean: Designing processes and structures that actively remove barriers to participation, particularly for structurally marginalized groups.

What we don’t mean: Mere presence or statistical diversity without redistribution of power.

What we mean: The living cultural, spatial and social continuity that communities preserve, adapt, and reinterpret.

What we don’t mean: Fixed monuments or nostalgia-driven restoration projects detached from current needs.

What we mean: The embedded narratives, patterns, and affective geographies that link place with collective identity.

What we don’t mean: Abstract historicism or a backward-looking planning agenda.

What we mean: Mutual empowerment through context-specific learning formats that combine local knowledge and transdisciplinary practice.

What we don’t mean: One-directional technical training imposed by external experts.

What we mean: A relational, iterative process of co-producing spatial futures grounded in lived realities.

What we don’t mean: Technocratic blueprinting detached from socio-political contexts.

What we mean: Spaces of negotiated access, expression, and encounter—even if not legally defined as “public.”

What we don’t mean: Only state-owned land or formal plazas.

What we mean: A spectrum of practices outside formal institutions—ranging from solidarity-based survival strategies to exploitative development.

What we don’t mean: A single, homogeneous category to be regularized or erased.

The unwritten but functional rules that guide spatial behavior in contexts where formal planning is absent or irrelevant.

This includes oral contracts, spatial customs, reciprocal arrangements, and micro-level negotiation practices.

Localized, culturally embedded systems of managing space and resources—developed over generations, sustained by community, and often invisible to official urbanism.

It provides stability and cohesion in fragile contexts, especially where formal governance is fragmented or exclusionary.

The exchange of knowledge, methods, and practices across urban contexts, with full respect for difference.

Unlike replication or transfer, translocal learning emphasizes mutual translation, contextual anchoring, and shared problem-solving.

The study of and engagement with the ordinary spaces and practices that shape daily life in cities—markets, courtyards, thresholds, water points—often overlooked by formal planning but essential to urban resilience and social cohesion.

A condition where political instability, social inequality, environmental risk, and weak institutions intersect, putting cities at risk of collapse or long-term dysfunction.

Urban fragility is not static—it can be mitigated through adaptive planning, cultural continuity, and community agency.