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The focus of this paper concerns social organizations operating in urban areas and investigates into the problem of its neglect for the understanding of the urban development processes. It starts with an analysis of land use and land market in urban economics applied to the city of São Paulo, Brazil. The core of the paper discusses several elements of an organisation-related urban development theory, i. e. household, enterprise, the state, local initiatives, and public representatives of the lifeworld and the work sphere. It criticizes urban economics for taking organizations as black boxes with no relevance for the understanding of spatial development processes. The need for new concepts is postulated and the emancipatory potential of a re-conceptualization of reality with emphasis on organizations is stressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]