“The Growth of the City: An Introduction to a Research Project”: from Robert E. Park, Ernest W. Burgess, and Roderick D. McKenzie, The City (1925)

Abstract

An enduring interest of urban geographers and sociologists is the internal structure of the city: the way in which physical features of a city are organized in space in relation to each other (as opposed to the study of systems of cities, which is concerned with the relationships among cities). In this selection from The City (1925) University of Chicago sociologist Ernest W. Burgess (1886-1966) proposed the concentric zone model of the internal structure of the city in 1925. He argued that there was an underlying physical-social-economic logic to the spatial and social structure of early twentieth-century industrial cities consisting of five concentric zones: Zone I – the central business district (CBD) would have office buildings, high-end retail, and other uses that require agglomeration and can afford high land values. Zone II would contain cheap residential hotels, bars, brothels, and restaurants serving poor new immigrants and criminals. Zone III – the zone of working-men’s homes – would house the emerging working class. Zone IV – the residential zone – would house better-paid, more stable households; and the commuter zone, affluent suburbanites. The Burgess model was dynamic: immigrants would move from the Zone I to the zone of working-men’s homes as they acculturated, gained skills, and got better paying jobs. Later they, or their children, might move to the residential or commuter zones. Competing models – the sectoral zone model developed by real estate economist Homer Hoyt and the multi-nuclei model developed by geographers Edward L. Ullman and Chauncy D. Harris – challenged Burgess.