Anita Lacey addresses the ways in which the contemporary development gaze does not accommodate urban lives, or does so in homogenising ways. She draws on her research in Honiara, Solomon Islands, examining the impact of the increasing convergence among development aid actors in Honiara on export-oriented market-based development. Lacey argues that donor actors, as well as nongovernmental organisations, must recognise the different challenges that urban and rural settlement patterns and poverties pose.