This article presents small gatherings as a socio-spatial context that provides a comparative framework through detailed empirical research. Such gatherings offer an opportunity to analyze urban social interactions, which can be integrated with the examination of the city’s specific spatial dynamics and overlapping socio-historical developments. One of the research challenges in studying small gatherings is their fluid nature, as they may or may not align with established urban scales. This is illustrated by two types of small gatherings, those among friends and those among neighbors, in case studies from Amman and East Jerusalem. While these gatherings share surface-level similarities, the analysis highlights their distinct relationships with the neighborhood and the broader city.