Design
The Most Famous Models for How Cities Grow Are Wrong
We need new ways to explain growing urban inequality.
In the last hundred years, one of the most enduring models of urban development has been the iconic "concentric zones" map. Outlined by Chicago School sociologist Ernest Burgess, it was initially published in the classic 1925 volume The City, by Burgess and his University of Chicago colleague Robert Park.
This Chicago School model suggests that cities grow steadily outward from the urban core or central business district. Surrounding this commercial core is a "zone in transition," with factories and warehouses. Beyond this comes the tenements and apartments of the working class, next the middle-class neighborhoods of larger homes, and ultimately the affluent commuter zones.