Urban Land Use Models and Social Patterns

Geographers have long tried to explain why different activities and social groups locate where they do within a city. Urban land use models are simplified representations of these patterns. They are deliberate generalizations: they leave out the messy detail of any real place in order to reveal an underlying logic. Three classic models, all developed with reference to cities in the United States in the early to mid twentieth century, remain the foundation of this topic.

The Burgess concentric zone model, published by Ernest Burgess in 1925 and based largely on Chicago, pictures the city as a set of rings growing outward from a single center. At the heart lies the central business district (CBD), the commercial and employment core with the highest land values and the tallest buildings. Surr