Military bases where families live separate from the parent in service.What are these neighborhoods called?

Greetings, Please help my confusion about something i am trying to make sense of. During the Korean war, many young American families moved to live on specially constructed military bases. What i am confused about is, isn;t the military base, a hub where the service men in the Navy would be sent out from? Isn't the "base" the headquarters station for the Navy? (not a mini community where predominantly wives and their young children lived ). If I am right on this then what was the complex called where the families lived?