{
  "id": "on-the-ground.local",
  "term": "on the ground",
  "sense": "local",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 14,
  "arena": "emergence",
  "domain": "levels and abstraction",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "a model that treats the real as separate from the general, when the real is what persists through the interaction of parts at a boundary",
  "folk_gloss": "what is actually happening in a specific place",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "model.representation",
      "real.actual",
      "general.broad",
      "interaction.process",
      "boundary.limit",
      "persist.continue"
    ],
    "interaction": "between parts at a boundary",
    "novel_properties": [
      "real",
      "local"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The 2020 locust swarms in East Africa overwhelmed regional monitoring systems despite satellite forecasts.",
      "domain": "ecology"
    },
    {
      "text": "Residents of Detroit's Brightmoor neighborhood organized block patrols after city police response times exceeded two hours.",
      "domain": "institutions"
    },
    {
      "text": "The Mars rover Perseverance adjusted its landing sequence in real time when radar detected unexpected boulders in Jezero Crater.",
      "domain": "engineering"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "on the ground"
  ],
  "closed": false,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "phrases:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.7,
    "sources": [
      "folk phrase — levels and abstraction"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-on-the-ground.local"
}