Concentric Zone Model
Sally has noticed that there are a lot of different types of neighborhoods in her city and is wondering how those neighborhoods might appear if they were mapped out.
The simplest and one of the earliest models of urban arrangement is the concentric zone model, which is sometimes called the Burgess model after Ernest Burgess, who first wrote about it in 1923. The concentric zone model says that a city is made up of neighborhoods shaped like rings that circle around a central business district. When mapped out, the concentric zone model kind of looks like a bull's eye.
Burgess identified five concentric circles, or zones, that he believed were common in cities. They are:
Zone 1 is the central business district or downtown area of a city. This is the center of the city, where there are often skyscrapers and lots of businesses.
Just outside of zone 1 is zone 2, which is made up of many factories. This area is where many goods are manufactured. Like the downtown area of zone 1, zone 2 does not have a lot of homes. Instead, these two zones are where most people work.
Circling the factories in zone 2 is zone 3, which is a working class neighborhood. This is where many of the factory workers live, mostly in apartments.
Zone 4, which surrounds zone 3, is a middle class neighborhood. Here, the people live in modest houses instead of apartments.
Finally, zone 5 is the outermost ring in the concentric zone model. It is an upper class neighborhood, made up of expensive houses where the richest citizens of the city live.
The concentric zone model, as we mentioned, is one of the first models to try to explain urban structures. And it kind of makes sense to Sally. After all, she's noticed that there are factories near the downtown area in her town, which echoes the ideas of zones 1 and 2.