ECOLOGICAL PATTERNING OF ROCHESTER, NEW YORK.

During the short time that human ecology has been a part of the research repertoire of some American sociologists, enough urban and rural communities have been described and a sufficiently compelling theoretical background has been provided to establish the importance of the distributive aspects of society for any adequate theory of social life. Too few studies have, however, attempted to describe the general ecological patterning of a community, and to use these general patterns to test some of the broad insights of ecological theory. The expansion and internal patterning of the city are seen to show considerable regularity around the original point of settlement. The chief irregularities in growth are the pronounced indentation in the southern boundary of the city and the northern bottle-neck extension to Lake Ontario. The former is a true ecological distortion, but the latter is a recently incorporated area that should be considered more a part of Rochester's metropolitan district than part of the city proper.