Entrepreneuring in diverse neighbourhoods: policies and minority business in Copenhagen, Istanbul, Milan and Warsaw

Recent literature claims that minority entrepreneurship is changing, e.g., entering non-ethnic sectors. A change partly related to spatial transformations (such as gentrification) in neighbourhoods where minorities are settled and to policies affecting their ventures. This article aims to disentangle how targeted and general policies affect minority entrepreneurship in neighbourhoods characterised by ethnic and class diversity in Copenhagen, Istanbul, Milan and Warsaw. Based on a comparative analysis of qualitative interviews, this article aims to answer the following questions: How do changes in neighbourhoods characterised by population diversity affect minority entrepreneurship? Are policies – especially those at city and neighbourhood level (including regeneration measures) – sustaining or challenging minority entrepreneurship? Our findings show that, despite local variations in terms of political economy, welfare structure and urban governance, notwithstanding displacing effects related to national and local policies, many minority businesses are responsive to neighbourhood changes and succeed to extend their market range beyond the ethnic or impoverished clientele.