Artist-entrepreneurs in underserved cities: Cultural production, social entrepreneurship, and community development

Arts and cultural industries are widely promoted as drivers of urban development, yet the experiences of artist-entrepreneurs in underserved communities remain underexplored. This study examines artist-entrepreneurs in Newark, New Jersey, and the Riverside–San Bernardino metro area in California. Drawing on interviews, document analysis, and field observations, it analyses how structural constraints and community embeddedness shape entrepreneurial practices and influence local cultural and economic life. Findings show that arts and cultural entrepreneurship (ACE) emerges from the interaction between structural constraints and entrepreneurial agency. Precarity, disinvestment, and limited institutional support generate necessity, while artist-entrepreneurs mobilize identity, community networks, and hybrid organizational models to sustain creative work and generate cultural and economic value. These practices reveal the pluralism of entrepreneurship, including informal, hybrid, and identity-based forms often overlooked in conventional entrepreneurship frameworks, and demonstrate the social entrepreneurship character of ACE in advancing representation, community capacity building, and place-based renewal. By foregrounding everyday cultural production in marginalized urban contexts, the study reframes ACE as a socially embedded process that contributes to local cultural ecosystems and community development. The findings highlight the need for urban and cultural policies that support artist-centered entrepreneurship, expand access to resources, and strengthen inclusive cultural infrastructures in underserved communities.