Urban inequality – understood as the uneven spatial distribution of resources in cities – is on the verge of becoming a relentless global problem. It has serious far-reaching social consequences and is proving difficult to reduce effectively (Glaeser et al., 2009). Organizations (i.e., firms, non-profits, entrepreneurial ventures) can play important roles in resisting this form of inequality. They can serve, empower, connect, and mobilise marginalised residents by providing resources and access to various domains of urban life (Marwell, 2009; Milofsky, 1987; Small, 2006; Vermeulen et al., 2016) leading to socially and economically mixed communities (Andersson et al., 2016; Samila & Sorenson, 2017) and high-growth entrepreneurship (Roche, 2020; Kwon & Sorenson, 2023). At the same time, the entry of organizations in poverty-stricken areas can sometimes increase urban inequality: increased competition and higher rents can cause the displacement of marginalised inhabitants (Atkinson, 2000) and higher closure rates of local incumbent businesses (Glaeser et al., 2015; Meltzer & Ghorbani, 2017).

Research within the fields of urban studies have studied extensively urban inequality (Nijman & Wei, 2020) and how it negatively correlates with social cohesion/third places/neighbourhood organizational density (Vermeulen et al. 2012; Williams & Hipp, 2019) but have paid less attention to (1) the economic and social productivity of organizations in urban settings in the context of urban inequality, and/or (2) how organizations can shape decisions about the allocation of (public) resources related to urban inequality (i.e., their role in urban governance processes) (McQuarrie & Marwell, 2009; Sampson 2012; Marwell and Morrissey 2020). Organizations significantly affect the distribution of resources, the arrangement of social networks, and the constitution of dispositions and identities of marginalized groups (Marwell, 2004; 2009; Small and McDermott, 2006; Vermeulen et al., 2014), but we lack insight into why some organizations are more influential than others, how some organizations resist, while others exacerbate, urban inequality, the mechanisms behind these processes, and how different urban contexts lead to different outcomes.

We aim to enrich the aforementioned discussions by presenting articles that contribute answers to two main questions:
1) Via which mechanisms, to what extent, and in what ways do organizations, businesses and entrepreneurs act as agents for urban change (positive and negative)?
2) What role does the urban context play in this process?

If you would like to attend this workshop please send an email to Floris Vermeulen (f.f.vermeulen@uva.nl)