ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests an ecological approach to the sub-community within the modern metropolis and draws on ideas from ecology and urban sociology. It also suggests that neighborhoods and suburbs will be better understood as parts of a metropolitan whole, that part-whole relationships will reveal the functions of the subcommunity. A variety of names have been suggested for local residential areas within the city, including natural area, community area, neighborhood, social area, microcommunity and subcommunity, among others. The term subcommunity is connotatively neutral, unlike neighborhood which has a gemeinschaft flavor. Sub-community is denotatively accurate, though, referring to a part, something less than a complete community. Human ecology views the ecosystem as the main object of investigation and the community as the smallest ecosystem. In relation to the sustenance base of the metro community, the subcommunity has two major functions: to house workers and to bring workers into the economic system.
