The Ecological Field and the Metropolitan Community: Manufacturing and Management

Abstract

A metropolitan community is a unit in a more inclusive ecological field rather than a discrete entity. The location of operating combinations consisting of factories adn administrative offices in Illinois justifies defining the Chicago Standar Metropolitan Area as a central dominant for the state. At the same time, Illinois factories with administrative offices outside the Chicago Standard Metropolitan Area are located with reference to the influence of adjacent and even more distant metropolitan areas. The structure of a metropolitan community must be explained by participation in a national ecological organization as well as by principles internal to itself.