Robinson develops “thinking through elsewhere” as a minimalist but powerful definition of comparison. Instead of restricting comparison to matched cities, she proposes placing any urban outcome, process or experience in conversation with other cases, concepts, circulations and contexts. The paper’s iconic contribution is the distinction between genetic and generative comparative tactics: one traces interconnected processes that produce repeated but differentiated outcomes, while the other uses variation among shared features to generate new concepts. Comparison thus becomes an engine of theoretical revisability rather than a technique for controlling difference. Methodologically, Robinson loosens the conventional unit of the city and allows comparison to operate across elements, processes, connections and singularities. The theoretical significance lies in granting any urban situation the capacity to modify wider concepts while preserving the limits of located insight. The article bridges postcolonial urbanism, Deleuzian difference and relational geography, offering a practical epistemology for a global urban studies that refuses both universal templates and absolute incommensurability.