Despite all three utilizing unruly protest to fight for basic goods, the urban communities in Cairo, Lagos, and Johannesburg have had significantly different outcomes. In Cairo, the fragmented protests have done little other than maintaining the status quo. In Nigeria, there have been some limited concessions gained through negotiations between a well-organized civil society and the federal government. In Johannesburg however, the fragmented community protests have had the most success in terms of outcome. While the difference between Cairo and Johannesburg is perhaps less surprising, how do we understand the difference between Johannesburg and Lagos? I argue the answer lies in the ability of protesters to traverse between contentious action and formal engagement with the state, or what I describe as traversion. If one understands this politics over basic goods taking place in both a field of contentious politics and in another field of formal, institutionalized politics, then traversion captures the way urban communities have been able to use various openings between the two fields.