The Sector Model, developed by Homer Hoyt in 1939, explains urban land use as wedges (sectors) radiating outward from the Central Business District along transportation routes, with industry, low-income housing, and high-income housing each occupying their own sector as the city grows.
The Sector Model Theory is Homer Hoyt's 1939 answer to the Burgess concentric zone model. Hoyt looked at real American cities and noticed that land use doesn't form neat rings around downtown. Instead, it forms wedges, like slices of a pie, stretching from the Central Business District out to the city's edge. The reason is transportation. Factories cluster along rail lines and rivers because they need to move goods. Working-class housing wedges in next to those industrial corridors because workers want short commutes (and the land is cheaper near the noise and pollution). High-income housing claims its own sector along the most desirable corridors, often on high ground or scenic routes, and stays in that wedge as it expands outward.
The big idea you need for AP Human Geography is directional growth. In the Burgess model, your distance from the CBD determines what you find. In Hoyt's model, your direction from the CBD matters just as much. A wealthy sector stays wealthy as it grows outward, and an industrial sector stays industrial. Once a wedge gets a reputation, growth follows that same line.
The Sector Model 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 AP Human Geography 6.5.A, which asks you to explain the internal structure of cities using various models and theories. The CED (EK PSO-6.D.1) names the Hoyt sector model explicitly, right alongside the Burgess concentric-zone model, the Harris and Ullman multiple-nuclei model, the galactic city model, and bid-rent theory. That means you're expected to know all of these models, tell them apart, and explain what each one assumes about how cities grow. Hoyt's specific contribution is adding transportation corridors to the story. Bid-rent theory and Burgess explain land use by distance alone; Hoyt shows that a rail line or major road can drag a land use outward in one direction.
Keep studying AP Human Geography Unit 6
Concentric Zone Model (Unit 6)
Hoyt's model is a direct revision of Burgess. Both start from the same CBD core, but Burgess organizes the city by distance (rings) while Hoyt organizes it by direction (wedges). Think of the sector model as the Burgess model after someone built a railroad through it.
Central Business District (CBD) (Unit 6)
Every sector in Hoyt's model points back to the CBD like spokes on a wheel. The model still assumes one dominant downtown where land values peak, which is exactly the assumption later models start to break.
Galactic City Model and Edge Cities (Unit 6)
The sector model was built for the rail-and-streetcar city of 1939. Once highways and cars spread activity to the suburbs, edge cities popped up far from downtown, and the galactic city model replaced Hoyt's single-center wedges with multiple nodes connected by beltways.
Gentrification (Unit 6)
Hoyt assumed high-income residents keep moving outward along their wedge, leaving older housing behind. Gentrification flips that script, with wealthier residents moving back into older inner-city sectors, which is a great example of how real cities outgrow the model.
Multiple-choice questions usually test the sector model in one of three ways. You might get a diagram of wedges radiating from a center and need to name the model, you might get a description ('high-income housing extends along a major boulevard from downtown to the suburbs') and need to match it to Hoyt, or you might need to pick out what makes the sector model different from Burgess or multiple-nuclei. The one-word answer to that last type is transportation. On the free-response side, Topic 6.5 models are classic FRQ material under skill-based prompts like 'describe,' 'explain,' and 'compare.' No released FRQ requires this term verbatim, but you should be ready to explain the internal structure of a city using the sector model (that's learning objective 6.5.A word for word) and to identify a model's limitations, such as Hoyt's assumption of a single CBD and a pre-automobile, rail-based city.
Both models start with a single CBD, so students mix them up constantly. The difference is the shape of growth and the reason for it. Burgess (1925) says land use forms rings, and what you find depends only on distance from downtown. Hoyt (1939) says land use forms wedges, and what you find depends on direction, because transportation routes like rail lines pull industry and housing outward along specific corridors. Quick check on a diagram or description: rings mean Burgess, wedges or pie slices mean Hoyt.
Homer Hoyt proposed the sector model in 1939, arguing that cities grow in wedge-shaped sectors radiating from the CBD rather than in concentric rings.
Transportation routes are the engine of the model, since industry follows rail lines and rivers, and housing sectors form in relation to those corridors.
Direction matters as much as distance, so a high-income sector stays high-income as it expands outward along its corridor.
Low-income housing tends to sit in wedges next to industrial sectors, while high-income housing occupies the most desirable corridor away from industry.
The model's main limitations are its assumptions of a single CBD and a rail-era city, which the multiple-nuclei and galactic city models were created to fix.
The CED lists the Hoyt sector model by name in EK PSO-6.D.1, so you need to recognize it from both a diagram and a written description.
It's Homer Hoyt's 1939 model of urban structure that organizes city land use into wedge-shaped sectors radiating from the Central Business District along transportation routes. It's one of the named city models in Topic 6.5 of the CED.
Burgess's concentric zone model (1925) arranges land use in rings based on distance from the CBD. Hoyt's sector model (1939) arranges it in wedges based on direction, because transportation corridors pull industry and housing outward along specific routes. Rings = Burgess, wedges = Hoyt.
Not fully. Hoyt built it for rail-based cities with one dominant downtown, and modern car-centered metros with edge cities and suburban business nodes fit the galactic city or multiple-nuclei models better. You can still spot sector-like patterns, like industry following old rail corridors, in many cities.
Low-income housing forms wedges next to industrial corridors, where land is cheaper and workers can live near jobs along rail lines. High-income residents claim a separate, more desirable corridor away from the noise and pollution, and that wedge keeps extending outward as the city grows.
Yes. EK PSO-6.D.1 names the Hoyt sector model as one of the models you must be able to use to explain the internal structure of cities (learning objective 6.5.A). Expect it in multiple-choice diagram questions and as fair game for Unit 6 FRQs.