The Sector Model, developed by Homer Hoyt in 1939, is an urban land-use model proposing that cities grow outward from the CBD in wedge-shaped sectors that follow transportation routes, with high-income, industrial, and low-income areas each occupying their own corridor rather than forming concentric rings.
The Sector Model is Homer Hoyt's 1939 answer to the Burgess concentric zone model. Hoyt looked at real housing data across American cities and noticed that land use didn't form neat rings around the central business district. Instead, it formed wedges, like slices of a pie, radiating outward from the CBD along transportation corridors such as rail lines, streetcar routes, and major roads.
The logic is simple. Once a sector gets established near the CBD, it extends outward along the same axis as the city grows. High-income residents claim the most desirable corridor (often along a scenic route or fast transit line) and keep moving outward along it. Industry follows rail lines and rivers in its own wedge. Lower-income housing fills in next to the industrial sector, where land is cheap and the environment is less pleasant. The result is a city sorted by socioeconomic status into directional slices, not distance-based rings. On the AP exam, this is one of the named models in EK PSO-6.D.1 that you use to explain the internal structure of cities.
The Sector Model lives in Unit 6 (Cities and Urban Land-Use Patterns and Processes) and directly supports learning objective 6.5.A, which asks you to explain the internal structure of cities using various models and theories. EK PSO-6.D.1 names "the Hoyt sector model" explicitly, so this isn't optional vocabulary. It's one of the models the CED expects you to identify from a description or diagram and compare against the Burgess concentric-zone model, the Harris and Ullman multiple-nuclei model, the galactic city model, and bid-rent theory. It also connects to 6.7.A, because Hoyt's whole insight is that infrastructure (rail lines, highways, transit corridors) shapes where economic and social groups locate. That's exactly what EK IMP-6.B.1 means when it says the location of a city's infrastructure directly affects its spatial patterns of development.
Keep studying AP Human Geography Unit 6
Burgess Concentric Zone Model (Unit 6)
The Sector Model is a direct revision of Burgess. Burgess said distance from the CBD determines land use; Hoyt said direction matters more, because growth follows transportation corridors. Knowing both lets you explain why the same city can look ring-like in one era and wedge-like once streetcars and rail lines stretch it outward.
Bid-Rent Theory (Unit 6)
Bid-rent theory explains why land near the CBD is expensive and land farther out is cheap. Hoyt keeps that price logic but bends it along corridors. Land along a fast transit line stays valuable far from the center, which is why a high-income wedge can stretch all the way to the edge of the city.
Infrastructure in Urban Development (Unit 6)
Topic 6.7 says a city's infrastructure shapes its spatial patterns of economic and social development. The Sector Model is that idea drawn as a diagram. Each wedge exists because something physical (a rail line, a river, a highway) pulled growth in that direction.
Suburbanization (Unit 6)
Hoyt's wedges keep extending outward as cities grow, which previews suburbanization. The high-income sector that stretched along a streetcar line in 1939 becomes the highway corridor of postwar suburban expansion, a pattern the galactic city model later picks up.
On multiple choice, the Sector Model usually appears as a scenario you have to match to the right model. A classic stem describes high-income residential areas extending outward from the center along transportation corridors, with lower-income housing filling in between, and asks which model fits. Your job is to catch the signal words. "Corridors," "wedges," "along a rail line or highway," and "extends outward in one direction" all point to Hoyt. "Concentric rings" points to Burgess, and "multiple CBDs" or "separate specialized districts" points to Harris and Ullman or the galactic city model. No released FRQ has used the term verbatim, but the internal structure of cities is standard FRQ territory, and you may be asked to describe a model's assumptions, apply it to a map or photo, or explain its limitations (like the fact that Hoyt built it from 1930s American cities, so it fits transit-era US cities better than postindustrial or non-Western ones).
Both models start from a single CBD and sort land use by socioeconomic status, which is why they blur together. The difference is geometry and cause. Burgess organizes the city by distance from the center, in rings, driven by invasion and succession. Hoyt organizes it by direction, in wedges, driven by transportation routes. Quick test: if the description mentions corridors, rail lines, or growth extending along an axis, it's the Sector Model. If it's all about rings getting less dense with distance, it's Burgess.
Homer Hoyt proposed the Sector Model in 1939 as a revision of the Burgess concentric zone model, arguing that cities grow in wedge-shaped sectors rather than rings.
Sectors form along transportation corridors, so the direction you travel from the CBD matters more than the distance.
High-income, industrial, and low-income areas each occupy their own wedge, and the low-income sector typically sits next to the industrial one where land is cheapest.
EK PSO-6.D.1 names the Hoyt sector model as one of the required models for explaining the internal structure of cities, alongside Burgess, multiple-nuclei, the galactic city model, and bid-rent theory.
The model fits transit-era American cities best and works less well for modern multi-centered cities or cities in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa, which have their own regional models.
On the exam, the words 'corridor,' 'wedge,' and 'along a transportation route' are your signal to pick the Sector Model over the other urban models.
It's Homer Hoyt's 1939 urban land-use model saying cities develop in wedge-shaped sectors radiating from the CBD along transportation corridors, with high-income, industrial, and low-income areas each in their own wedge. It's one of the required models in Topic 6.5.
Burgess's concentric zone model sorts land use by distance from the CBD in rings; Hoyt's Sector Model sorts it by direction in wedges that follow rail lines and major roads. Same starting point (a single CBD), totally different geometry.
No. Hoyt improved on Burgess by adding transportation corridors, but the CED treats both as useful models with different assumptions and limits. The exam expects you to know all the urban models in EK PSO-6.D.1 and pick the one that fits a given scenario.
Because infrastructure shapes where growth happens (the core idea of EK IMP-6.B.1). A rail line or streetcar route makes land along it more accessible and valuable, so once a sector starts along that route, it keeps extending outward in the same direction as the city grows.
Only partially. It explains 1930s American cities built around rail and streetcars, but modern cities with multiple business centers fit the multiple-nuclei or galactic city model better, and cities in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa have their own regional models. Knowing a model's limits is itself exam-worthy.
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