Preface<br >By the end of the 1950 s， it would have appeared to the intellectual historian<br >that the Chicago school of urban sociology had exhausted itself. Even at<br >the University of Chicago， the intensive and humanistically oriented study<br >of the social worlds of the metropolis had come to an end. The older figures<br >had disappeared one by one， and a new generation of sociologists were<br >interested in quantitative methodology and systematic theory. A few<br >disciples of the traditional approach carried on in the shadows of the<br >university or were scattered through the country.<br > But intellectual traditions are transmitted and transformed as much by<br >the intrinsic vitality of their content as by the institutions of academic life.<br >A mere decade later the themes of a reconstructed urban sociology are<br >once again at the center of social science thinking. The complexity of<br >social behavior in the urban setting and the rise of concern with policy<br >issues has meant that urban sociologists have come to focus on a particular<br >social grouping or on a specific social institution， such as the family， the<br >juvenile gang， the slum school， or newly emerging community organiza-<br > tions. Nevertheless， in the reconstruction of urban sociology， the com-<br > munity study remains a basic vehicle for holistic and comprehensive<br > understanding of the metropolitan condition.<br > Gerald Suttles study of the Addams area on the Near West Side of<br > Chicago is a powerful expression of the contemporary effort to maintain a<br > continuity in the tradition of the urban community study and to contribute<br > to an urban sociology based on a more precise methodological base and a<br > sounder theoretical frame of reference. His work is grounded on the notion<br > that intensive observation of microunits--that is， of the family and of age-<br > graded groups--is the initial step in the analysis of community structure.<br > He proceeds with an empirical orientation reflective of earlier periods of<br > the Chicago school when social anthropology had not yet separated from<br > sociology. At the same time， he is fully committed to the view that the<br > intensive study of a few families or a single street corner gang is not an<br >