What most urban villages share is a history of incremental development. They densified gradually over many decades. Their populations increased internally and they also absorbed newcomers who grew roots over time. Residents shaped these habitats, building shrines and schools, shops and homes, subdividing paddy fields into small plots, implementing infrastructure for water and roads, participating in local governance, sending remittance home from afar, and so on.

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What seems to be key in the making of an urban village is the contribution of many types of actors, over a long period of time. Modern planning methods and the way projects are financed do not seem to allow the kind of incremental growth and user participation necessary for urban villages to come to life. Even in the rare cases where municipal authorities are in control of the planning process, the tendency is for entire neighbourhoods to be delivered and then sold to consumers, who can buy and rent, but will have little say on the physical evolution and social activities of the place where they live. We hope that new ways of producing settlements, which include participation and crowdfunding, for instance, may change the existing trend. But for now, the best urban villages we know of remain the ones that are at the heart of our cities and which we are all too quite to dismiss as inadequate and backward.