RANCHO : (Venezuela) is a house placed illegally on an invaded piece of land. A rancho houses one or more families and grows constantly, depending on their economical situation. Frequently the rancho starts as one room made out of cardboard, built by its dwellers, generally use just to reserve a lot of land in the new settlement, and in time (years) cans evolve to a house with many floors in brick and concrete, built by builders from the community, or from some neighbor community, on the dwellersﾕ request.
	BARRIO : (Venezuela) Is the name given to the spontaneous urban settlements composed by ranchos. These communities are the poorest areas of the Venezuelan cities, and in the present they constitute the main and most notorious part of its urban landscapes. The last demographic cense done in Venezuela, in 1990, pointed out that more than 61% of its urban population live in barrios de ranchos. Barrios are constructed progressively, frequently over terrains with hard natural conditions, out of legal regulations and without any kind of urban planning, having its own residents as principal developers, which is traduced in a general condition of deficiency, specially referred to roads and public services availability. In time, some established barrios achieve to have running water, electricity, schools and can be compare to formal neighborhoods.
	INSTALACIONES DE SERVICIO : (Venezuela) is the infrastructure of commodities (as electricity or water) supplied by the government and/or private companies, as a business, to members of a community. In barrios de ranchos (Venezuelan spontaneous urban settlements) most of the initial settings of these commodities have been done, out of regulation, by the community members, commonly by connecting wires or pipes from their houses to the city's infrastructure, obtaining poor or irregular services. Some established barrios began with this informal situation and in time have establish a more formal relationship with the companies that provide the commodities, so they pay some money from time to time and get a better service.
	BUHONERO : (Venezuela) any kind of street vendor, who sells merchandise on public areas (as sidewalks, squares or the highway). La buhoneria is an informal work, directly related to some of the most important problems of the Venezuelan cities (overpopulation, unemployment and low salaries). Quite commonly many buhoneros (offering any kind of merchandise) work in the same area, giving shape to invasive and illegal street markets.
	MERCADO : -market- is a (generally) legal association of vendors that trade any kind of merchandise indoors or outdoors. In Caracas we can find big general markets, where one can find everything, from food to household and clothes, as well as specialized markets, like clothes markets, bargains markets or ethnic markets. Most of the ethnic markets in Caracas (Chinese, Peruvian, Colombian) are meeting points for their communities, giving to these minorities a place in the city.