I've always understood heterotopias as Other not because they are unsettled, though I guess technically that's true, but as places where associations are rewired in a way alien to The Town. The whole symbolic order delineating an entirely new set of referents. Hence his his examples (unashamedly pulled right from Wikipedia): ships, cemeteries, bars, brothels, prisons etc. Objects in this space have differing meaning relative to outside the space because they are defined by a use unique to the heterotopia.
And this is right in line with Campbells conception of the Hero's Journey- its not just that the hero brings back new knowledge, its that he gets rid of the old crystalized associations fettering desire. Thats why the hero 'dies' or goes into the underworld, to kill the old self and return to the village unencumbered