Researches were conducted on the housing issues such as physical condition,rntransformation, identity and so on. The importance of common places and their use as partrnof the activities that takes place and the significance of these activities for inner-cityrnneighborhoods of Addis Ababa, however, were not given much weight. Thus, the mainrnobjective of the research is to explore activities of common places in one of thesernneighborhoods.rnTo investigate this, a case study approach was selected, as it is the best fit for descriptive,rnexplanatory and exploratory questions. Moreover, it is the most appropriate to collect data inrna natural setting. Accordingly, qualitative data is collected in the form of semi structured indepthrninterviews, mapping, photography and notes from personal observations. The casernarea, Abnet, was chosen based on the fact that itâ€Ÿs a dense inner-city informal settlement.rnThe research focuses on streets and shared compounds of a neighborhood. The streetsrnbased on activities taking place and other geographical features, are sub divided into twornmain categories, namely access and nodal streets, and small neighborhood streets, whichrnare more intimate serving mostly residents of immediate compounds. A total of ten streetsrnand seven compounds were studied.rnAccordingly, the main findings are: activities can be classified into four major categoriesrnnamely, business activities, recreational activities, household activities and Social/culturalrnactivities. It was revealed that, overlap of different types of activities is a common scenario.rnThe type of places the activities occupy are found to depend on the types of activities. Thernresearch strongly suggests that overlap of activities is useful for maximum utilization ofrnspace with other socio-economic and recreational advantages and that it should be fostered.rnWhen planning and designing common places there should be hierarch of common placesrnand they should be planned in a way that they can accommodate layers of activities