Using an "ecological regional analysis" methodology for defining types of communities and their associated mortality rates, this study of Georgia's 159 counties finds that the suburban and town centered counties have low mortality while the city-centered type predicts low mortality for the whites. The military-centered counties do not predict. The rates for circulatory disease deaths show the same pattern. These findings are interpreted with the help of a new version of social ecology grounded in the ratio of the county's problem-solving capacity to the threats it faces.