Discuss Ernest Burgess's concentric-zone model of urban development. Then compare and contrast it with Homer Hoyt's sector model, as well as multiple nuclei theory.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Ernest W. Burgess's (1925) concentric-zone model showed how patterns of land use reflected successive phases of invasion and occupation. The outcome was a series of concentric circles or zones, with the central business district (CBD) placed firmly in the center (see Figure 17.4). This was the hub of the city's economic activity and had the highest land values. Moving outward, the CBD was surrounded by a "zone of transition" perpetually under threat of invasion by businesses and industries with growing commercial interests. Those who could leave this vulnerable area did, but those who could not afford to move were forced to stay, forming a marginal population of immigrants, criminals, and the mentally ill in an area known for poverty and vice. This is where the Jewish ghetto, Little Sicily, Chinatown, and parts of the Black Belt were located.
The next zone was for the assimilated and upwardly mobile, such as the children of immigrants. Burgess called this the "zone of workingmen's homes." The second-generation immigrants and factory laborers who lived there weren't poor, but neither were they wealthy enough to own land or their own apartments. The "residential zone," instead, was populated by the middle class, mostly white-collar employees and small-business owners and managers. They lived in newer, or at least renovated, apartments and single-family homes. Crime rates were significantly lower in this zone than in the working class's natural area, which in turn was less crime-ridden than the "zone of transition" just outside the CBD. The zone farthest away was the suburbs, the "commuters' zone," filled with residents who depended on the city for their jobs but were successful enough to live in the safer periphery of the city.
With artistic license to deal with Lake Michigan (which cut the zones in half down a north-south line), Burgess's model was a pretty accurate description of the residential segregation of Chicago. But it was intended to do more than describe Chicago; the goal was to show the social patterns one could expect to find in all industrial cities. Because Burgess painted in broad strokes, his model was open to criticisms that led others-including his own colleagues-to offer modified layouts of the city.
Homer Hoyt's (1939) sector model is based on the idea that cities' growth patterns depend on the cities' main lines of transportation. Transport corridors produce patterns of intense competition for land and real estate around them. Instead of concentric zones, in Hoyt's model "the city was pictured more like a starfish or a spoked wheel." Chauncy Harris and Edward Ullman disagreed with both Burgess and Hoyt. Their multiple-nuclei model de-emphasizes the CBD in favor of a decentralized vision of the city, with several nuclei in areas with specific concentrations of specialized activities and facilities like manufacturing, shopping, and education.