Observing a plethora of small entrepreneurial activities in the cities of developing countries, this paper examines the social significance of these occupational activities. The data gathered from a Korean city suggest that small entrepreneurship provides occupational niches to marginal migrant workers as well as an alternative to the bureaucratic channel of upward social mobility for a significant proportion of urban residents. These findings are interpreted by using the conception of occupational situs, which promises greater analytical utility in the study of developing societies than the unidimensional conception of occupational structure.