University of Arizona Most scholars who study inequality focus on household income and wealth. This is obviously important. But families' life chances are also affected by where they live and how well they are able to access what they need. Neighborhoods matter. Research has documented how living in racially segregated communities, areas of concentrated poverty, and areas which are crime ridden place residents at an extreme disadvantage. Past research shows the reason for these conditions is there are not organizational resources in these communities that can provide families basic services, e.g., supermarkets, clubs, churches, banks, restaurants,and pharmacies. The purpose of this research is to understand why establishments locate where they do and if social factors (e.g., race/ethnicity, social class, crime), market forces (e.g., competition, housing prices, consumer demand), or political factors (e.g., planning) matter more. Also, because the study period includes the Great Recession, it is possible to see how extreme conditions impacted neighborhoods' stocks of organizational resources. The research posits that residents' well-being is a function of their spatial capital. That is, do they have the ability to access locally the organizational resources they need? Access is a function not only of families' financial and cultural capital, but also their proximity to organizational resources, location in the transportation grid, control over spatial technologies, and social traits that allow them to gain access to facilities they seeks. However, this study recognizes the need for a better understanding of the organizations and their movement across the metroscape. The research seeks to answer two research questions. First, what causes establishments to locate where they do in the metropolitan community? What leads to births and growth? What leads to deaths and decline? The study focuses on planning and zoning initiatives by government, ecological processes, e.g., competition among organizations and forms, and community context particularly crime. Second, what can we learn about neighborhood resilience from one metropolitan area?s experience with financial meltdown? This project will collect data which complements ten years of research on tens of thousands of establishments and their location in the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale urbanized area. The study has broader significance, because families' access to different types of activities is important for children's educational, emotional, and social development, yet not all children have equal access to high quality programs, activities, and opportunities. There is a spatial mismatch between supply and demand. By focusing this research on the supply side of the market, the investigator hopes to gain a better understanding of nonprofit, for-profit, and government behaviors. Research outcomes could potentially inform policy makers on how to motivate providers to locate/stay in under-served areas or to empower families to advocate for and provide these services. The research furthers NSF?s mission of supporting basic research and using that knowledge to improve the human condition. While most recognize that extreme inequality is not a desirable state, we do not know what to do about it. While it may not be possible to redistribute wealth equitably, there should be ways of making organizational resources more spatially accessible so that all residents have a chance at a healthy, happy, and prosperous life. This research contributes to the basic knowledge necessary to address these issues. The research also contributes to several fields of inquiry and hopefully will stimulate further research in sociology, urban planning, geography, urban economics, transportation studies, and spatial science (GIS).