Location Matters : Ethnic Entrepreneurs and the Spatial Context

The factors that influence the emergence of ethnic enterprises differ across spatial contexts; in other words, location matters.Paying particular attention to economic developments such as unemployment and firm size, as well as changes within the urban population and environment, the "spatial approach" is used to explore the relationship between location and immigrant businesses.Regions with large numbers of small firms are likely to generate more ethnic enterprises than regions in which large firms predominate.Also, entrepreneurs are more likely to set up shop in older neighborhoods than in newer areas (which sometimes operate on rules about who is and who is not allowed to establish a business), perhaps because the presence of daily street markets attracts ethnic entrepreneurs.The spatial approach should not replace all other approaches; instead, it should serve as a complement to other approaches.For example, factors central to the cultural approach are only meaningful within certain spatial contexts.(SAA)