CHAPTER 5 — HAPPENING CITIES: THE REAL ENGINE BEHIND THE SIX HOMEPAGE TILES

Happening Cities and How to edit

For days, the Happening Cities block on the homepage felt like a locked box. No matter what we changed — listings, taxonomy order, term hierarchy, even deleting entire locations — the same six cities kept appearing. Nothing in WordPress or ListingPro explained why.

This chapter documents the moment we finally cracked the code, and how the real control was hiding in the one place we hadn’t looked: inside the Elementor widget itself.

5.1 — The Mystery of the Six Cities

We started with every logical theory:

  • Alphabetical order
  • Listing count
  • Term hierarchy
  • Term ID
  • Creation date
  • Parent/child structure
  • Elementor settings

None of them explained why California appeared while Paragon — with more listings, a better image, and a clean term — did not.

Even deleting California only dropped the widget to five tiles. Re‑adding California restored it instantly.

Something else was controlling the six.

5.2 — The Breakthrough: Editing the Homepage in Elementor

The answer finally revealed itself when we opened:

Pages → Home → Edit with Elementor

We scrolled to the Happening Cities section and clicked directly on the block. The widget panel opened on the left.

Inside that panel was a button we had never clicked:

Edit Taxonomy

That button opened a popup — and inside that popup was the missing link.

5.3 — The Hidden Field: Term Slugs

Inside the Edit Taxonomy popup, searching for “term slugs” surfaced a field containing:

  • A list of exactly six slugs
  • The same six cities that appeared on the homepage
  • In the same order
  • With an option for Ascending or Descending alphabetization

This was the real selector.

Not WordPress. Not ListingPro. Not CubeWP’s backend. Not listing count. Not alphabetical order of the taxonomy.

The Happening Cities widget was reading this manual list of six slugs.

5.4 — The Moment Paragon Finally Appeared

Once we added paragon to the Term Slugs list:

  • Paragon appeared instantly
  • It alphabetized correctly
  • It displayed the Paragon image we assigned in the Term Image field
  • It showed the correct listing count (8)
  • It behaved exactly like the other cities

This confirmed everything:

The Happening Cities block is manually controlled inside the Elementor widget through the Term Slugs field.

5.5 — The Real Workflow: How to Add a City to Happening Cities

Once we understood the system, the workflow became simple and logical.

STEP 1 — Create your city image

Design or choose the photo you want for the tile.

STEP 2 — Upload it to Media

WordPress stores it automatically.

STEP 3 — Create the Location term

Listings → Locations → Add New Assign the image using Term Image → Insert Image.

STEP 4 — Assign listings (optional)

If you want a listing count to appear.

STEP 5 — Add the city to the Happening Cities widget

Pages → Home → Edit with Elementor Scroll to Happening Cities Click the block Open Edit Taxonomy Search for Term Slugs Add your slug (e.g., paragon) Choose Ascending or Descending

STEP 6 — Update and refresh

Your city appears instantly.

Easy. Predictable. Repeatable.

5.6 — Why This Was So Hard to Find

ListingPro uses CubeWP under the hood, but the documentation never explains that:

  • The Happening Cities widget is not dynamic
  • It does not scan all locations
  • It does not choose the top six
  • It does not use listing count
  • It does not use taxonomy order

Instead, it uses a manual list of six slugs hidden inside the Elementor widget’s taxonomy settings.

This is why nothing in WordPress matched what we saw on the homepage.

5.7 — Summary: The Real Logic Behind Happening Cities

The homepage tiles are controlled by:

1. Term Slugs (inside the Elementor widget)

This list determines which six cities appear.

2. Term Image (inside the Location editor)

This image becomes the tile photo.

3. Listing Count

This number appears on the tile.

4. Alphabetization (Ascending/Descending)

The widget sorts the six slugs you give it.

Everything else is irrelevant.

5.8 — The Big Lesson

The answer wasn’t in WordPress. It wasn’t in ListingPro. It wasn’t in CubeWP’s backend.

It was inside the Elementor widget, behind a button called Edit Taxonomy, inside a field called Term Slugs.

Once we found it, the entire system made sense — and Paragon finally took its rightful place on the homepage.

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