The Burgess concentric zone model (1925) is an urban land-use model that pictures a city as a series of rings radiating outward from the Central Business District, with land use shifting from commercial at the core to industry, lower-income housing, and finally wealthier residential zones at the edge.
Ernest W. Burgess developed the concentric zone model in 1925 by studying Chicago, and it became the first of the classic urban models you need for AP Human Geography. The model says a city grows outward from its center in five rings. The Central Business District (CBD) sits in the middle, surrounded by a zone of transition (mixed industry and deteriorating housing), then a zone of working-class homes, then middle-class residences, and finally a commuter zone on the outer edge.
The big idea is that distance from the center sorts people and land uses. Land near the CBD is the most expensive, so only businesses that can pay top dollar locate there. As you move outward, land gets cheaper and housing gets bigger and wealthier. In other words, the concentric zone model is basically bid-rent theory drawn as a map. The CED lists it (EK PSO-6.D.1) alongside the Hoyt sector model, the Harris and Ullman multiple-nuclei model, the galactic city model, and bid-rent theory as the core tools for explaining how cities are organized inside.
This term lives in Topic 6.5 (The Internal Structure of Cities) in Unit 6: Cities and Urban Land-Use Patterns and Processes. It directly supports learning objective 6.5.A, which asks you to explain the internal structure of cities using models and theories, and EK PSO-6.D.1 names the Burgess concentric-zone model first on that list. It also matters because it's the baseline model. Hoyt's sectors, Harris and Ullman's multiple nuclei, and the galactic city model all exist partly as responses to what Burgess got wrong. If you understand the rings, you can explain why every later model bent, sliced, or scattered them.
Keep studying AP Human Geography Unit 6
Bid-Rent Theory (Unit 6)
Bid-rent theory is the engine under the hood of the Burgess model. Land closest to the CBD costs the most, so high-paying commercial users grab the center and residential users get pushed into the outer rings. If an exam question asks for the mechanism behind concentric rings, bid-rent is the answer.
Zone of Transition (Unit 6)
The second ring in Burgess's model, just outside the CBD, is the zone of transition. It mixes aging housing, industry, and recent migrants. This is the part of the model that links to later urban processes like gentrification, since cheap centrally-located housing is exactly what gets redeveloped.
Galactic City Model (Unit 6)
The galactic city model is what happens when cars and highways break the rings. Instead of everything orbiting one CBD, edge cities and suburban nodes pop up around beltways. Comparing Burgess (1925, streetcar era) to the galactic model (postwar, automobile era) is a classic way to show how transportation reshapes urban structure.
Urban Models of Developing Countries (Unit 6)
The CED also lists models from Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa, and they often flip Burgess upside down. In the Latin American model, the wealthy live near the center along a spine while the poor live on the periphery, the opposite of Burgess's pattern. Knowing that contrast is exactly the kind of comparison Topic 6.5 questions reward.
Multiple-choice questions usually hand you a pattern and ask which model explains it. For example, a stem might describe concentric rings of decreasing population density and falling land values with distance from the CBD, then ask which model fits and why. The answer is Burgess, and the mechanism is bid-rent. Just as often, the question describes a pattern that does NOT fit Burgess, like high-income housing in a single wedge (Hoyt) or dispersed suburban nodes (multiple nuclei or galactic), and tests whether you can rule the concentric model out. No released FRQ has required this term verbatim, but Topic 6.5 FRQs commonly ask you to apply or critique an urban model, so be ready to name the rings, explain the bid-rent logic behind them, and state a limitation, such as the model ignoring transportation corridors and assuming a single center.
Both are classic models of city structure, but they organize space differently. Burgess uses rings, so what matters is distance from the CBD. Hoyt uses wedges (sectors) radiating outward along transportation routes, so what matters is direction from the CBD. Quick test for exam stems: if high-income housing forms a wedge stretching from downtown outward, that's Hoyt; if land use changes evenly in all directions as you move away from the center, that's Burgess.
The Burgess concentric zone model (1925) describes a city as five rings expanding outward from the CBD, moving from commercial core to zone of transition to working-class, middle-class, and commuter zones.
The model runs on bid-rent logic, where expensive central land goes to commercial users and cheaper outer land goes to housing, so wealth generally increases with distance from the center.
It appears in EK PSO-6.D.1 under Topic 6.5, where you're expected to explain the internal structure of cities using this model alongside Hoyt, multiple-nuclei, galactic city, and bid-rent theory.
Burgess assumes one CBD and uniform growth in all directions, which is why later models like Hoyt's sectors and the multiple-nuclei model were created to fix its blind spots.
The model fits early 20th-century industrial cities like Chicago, but it often reverses in developing-world cities, where the wealthy live near the center and the poor live on the periphery.
It's Ernest Burgess's 1925 model showing urban land use as rings around the CBD, with the zone of transition, working-class housing, middle-class housing, and a commuter zone moving outward. It's one of the urban structure models named in the CED for Topic 6.5.
Burgess organizes the city by distance from the CBD (rings), while Hoyt organizes it by direction (wedges following transportation routes). If high-income housing forms a sector stretching out from downtown, that's Hoyt, not Burgess.
Not cleanly. It was built on 1920s Chicago, before highways and mass suburbanization, so edge cities and multiple commercial nodes break its single-center assumption. That's why the AP exam often pairs it with the galactic city model as a then-versus-now comparison.
Burgess reflects North American industrial cities, where the rich could afford to commute and escape crowded centers. In the Latin American model, elites cluster near the CBD along a commercial spine while informal settlements sit on the periphery, so the pattern reverses.
From the inside out: the Central Business District, the zone of transition (industry and deteriorating housing), the zone of working-class homes, the zone of better middle-class residences, and the commuter zone at the edge.
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