  Biological environments at micrometer scales and below are often crowded, and
experience incessant stochastic thermal fluctuations. The presence of
membranes/pores, and multiple biological entities in a constricted space can
make the damping/diffusion inhomogeneous. This effect of inhomogeneity is
presented by the diffusion becoming coordinate-dependent. In this paper, we
analyze the consequence of inhomogeneity-induced coordinate-dependent diffusion
on Brownian systems in thermal equilibrium under the It\^o's interpretation. We
argue that the presence of coordinate-dependent diffusion under It\^o's
formulation gives rise to an effective diffusion potential that can have
substantial contribution to system's transport. Alternatively, we relate this
to the existence of an emergent force of entropic origin that dictates the
transport near interfaces.
