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Social capital has been a crucial concept for the analyses of community development, and yet little research has been conducted that examines the effect of organizational context in which the social capital is formed and activated. Employing Geographic Information System (GIS) and a spatial lag regression design, this article exploits the repopulation process in New Orleans to estimate the effect of pre-Katrina organizational density on post-Katrina repopulation. We observe a consistent positive effect of primary social organizations on repopulation, while ancillary social organizations are found to have no impact. Results lend credence to the claims that (i) inequality in organizational resources may bring about differential outcomes across communities, and (ii) local organizations that primarily serve a social function possess a distinct type of capacity that can facilitate local development processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]