What factors affect where organizations locate facilities in local communities? This paper examines how urban development influenced the neighborhood location of two very different types of facilities, general hospitals and orphanages, over the 70-year period during which Chicago emerged as an urban metropolis. Our results suggest that the human ecology and growth machine perspectives explain aspects of facility location not accounted for by the spatial density dependence model. (Contains 2 tables, 1 figure and 1 note.)