The Alonso model

Dr. Luis Quintana

William Alonso
He was born in Buenos Aires,
Argentina, in 1954, it
graduated as an architect
at Harvard, in 1956
obtained a master's degree in
Urban Planning and in
1966 the doctorate in
Regional Sciences in the
University of
Pennsylvania.
His main job
published in 1964 was
Location and Land Use.
Basic assumptions
The assumptions of the model are the same as
the one by Von Thünen.
The space you visualize is different from that of
Von Thünen when considering a central district of
business (BDC).
In this model, the cost of production includes
at the cost of transportation.
Income will also depend on the
distance; proximity to the center gives rise to
higher profits.
Offered or bid rental function
(Bid rent)

It is the equilibrium unit rent that the

the company is willing to offer to
different distances to the center, p is the
unit price of the good produced by the
businessman, c is the unit cost of
production, z is the profit and x is the

canyou dad de lbi en

prod
ucId o .
x( )
r( ) px  z  c x ( )
Income curve

Rent Z
offered

It remains the same

n
profit curve at cost
from a greater distance and
Z’ lower rent

n’

center
Distance

r
r' px z c x' x c'
The slope of the income curve is:
The slope expresses the variation in land cost due to the unit variation in distance; if
increasing the distance by one unit results in higher transportation costs, in order to maintain the same profit it is
It is necessary to lower the offered rent.
Benefit and offered income

Rent
offered

z1

z2

z3

z4

z5

center
Distance δ
Effective rent

Rent
offered

z1

z2

z3
Effective rent
z4

z5

center
Distance δ
An example and solution to the Von
Thünen
If we assume three Renta
companies that Ra
they operate in sectors
in which the
valuation of the
central location Rb

differs in Rc
importance (a
a boutique
seller of Distancia
a computer and a
bakery boutique
The slope of its
income curve compass bakery

differs due to its

sensitivity due to
central location.
Residential location
The individual faces
a trade-off between
price of land and Rent
offered
distance; a measure
that approaches to the
the center has greater
advantage of
accessibility, but to
same time goes
having disutility
for the highest price
what has to be paid
on the ground; it is a
trade-off between cost and center
Distance
transport time.
Utility function
The function of Indifference curves
utility of the
individual is:
you u( Invalid input
Others
goods
A

where z is
the set of
all the others B

goods that
needs, what is Size of the house
the size of the
house.
Optimal choice
Indifference curve and budget constraint

Other goods
U


Size of the house

q

Optimal selection
Optimal consumer selection at a distance from the center

Other assets
y
Pzd 0
E

Z* U2

U1
U0
Size of the house
q* y d 0
r  d0 
Preferences

Dimension
of the
housing In the center (CBD)

Y1 Y2

accessibility
Therefore, the location decision depends on three factors:
accessibility
housing price
dimension of the housing
Preferences

Optimal consumer selection options at different distances from the center

Other goods

U*

b a
Size of the house

Rent for a Rent for a location

central location peripheral
Locational equilibrium
It is obtained
superimposing the
income curve Consumer location equilibrium
of the market of the
earth, which expresses rRent of the land

the real price of Unit rent

E

market, defined
exogenously, in r 
the income curve r0
of proposal, it r 
r 

Distance
what reveals the Center d0
maximum utility.
Practice

Case 1: If we assume an increase in the

individual's income and this considers the
size of the housing as a good
superior what would happen?
Case 2: If we assume an increase in the
individual's income and this considers to
accessibility as a superior good
What would happen?
Spatial structure
The spatial urban structure refers to the
the way in which they are organized and distributed
human, economic and social activities
in the space formed by the city.
Generally, the initial core or
center, where the city was initially founded,
composed in many cases of a center
historical, usually with functions
tertiary sectors of commerce and transport and of a
periphery where the areas reside
industrial and the housing of the population.
Urban form
The functional economic relationship between the
parts that make up the city, that is to say of its
center and its periphery gives rise to the form in
how economic activity is organized in the
space.

Which according to the evolution of

development of cities and the theory that it
interpretation has been characterized by two types
of models.
Models
Monocentric
The monocentric model of explaining the distribution of the
economic activities in space and their effect on
land use generation was developed by William Alonso
and Richard Muth, based on the state model
Thünen's isolated state, extending it and adapting it to the context
urban.
The isolated state, in this case, becomes a city that
it is isolated and is characterized by the dominance of an area
central from which activity is organized and distributed
economic and the population.
It is assumed that the city has only one central place, in
the one that concentrates the majority of economic activity. In
that area of the city contains commercial activity and services
outside the center is located the industry and the residences of the
population of the city.
Decisions
Companies produce goods and services and have to make
location decisions in the city while families
they are employed by companies and as consumers
they acquire housing so they have to make decisions to
select the place where they are going to acquire their home.
The decision-making of companies and families translates
especially in land uses and leads to the shape of the
internal spatial structure of the city.
For this, it is assumed in the city the existence of a district
business center, where production takes place and
exchange of goods and services and the outskirts of the city in
where the population resides, so it has to move from
the suburbs to the center of the city to work and acquire the
goods and services you need.
Face-to-face negotiations make industrial offices
be located in the central sector, in order to have direct contacts.
Land uses
Land uses
Technology
The export is
carry out through the node
The model central. The production
manufacturer is exported
monocentric through the terminal in
of cities the central city.

was dominant The product moves

in the first from the company to the center of
the city where himself
years of the century find the terminal
XX and is associated railway through the
which is exported the
to technology production.
of transport
of the 19th century
It is
representative
of cities b. The transport intra -
urban, in the interior of the
small and city, takes place in
media. floats draws
horses that run in
for

all addresses.
Periphery
In such a way that as the activity grows
from the city and the population tends to displace
from the center to the periphery in an invasion process
succession, so when growth occurs, each
the internal area of the city expands until
invade the outer area.
So the value of the land decreases
progressively due to its distance from the center
from the city. The basis of his explanation lies in
the assumptions of preferential accessibility to the place
central and the functioning of the negative gradient of
la renta del suelo y la elevación de los costos de
transport as activities move away from
market at the periphery.
Central district
Land uses
Rent curves and land use
A = offices and businesses
B = Warehouses, distribution
and light manufacturing
C = Room and
consumer services
D = Heavy manufacturing

E = agriculture
F = Silvicultura

A B C D E F
Limitations

The monocentric model of cities

was dominant in the early years of the
20th century.
In the last 70 and 80 years, most
of the large metropolitan areas have
begun to be polycentric, with the
emergence of suburban subcenters
that complement and compete with the
heart of the city's central area.
Polycentric urban structure
Modern cities are characterized by polyspatial structures.
centrics, result of processes of economic dispersion from the center to
different places in the city, which gives rise to sub-centers of activity
economic.
If a city grows enough, the central district of the city no longer
it offers the same economies of scale as in the monocentric model
and this results in the formation of another center or sub-center of
economic activity at a certain physical distance from the original center,
with its own area of influence.
In fact, the mono-centric structure of cities corresponds to the
initial stage of urban growth and small cities
medians, to the extent that a dynamic and important
urban growth, urban expansion generates a spatial structure
polycentric characterized by a process of decentralization and
deconcentration of economic activity and population from its center
original to the periphery forming multiple subcenters, which
they start to compete with the main center.
Residential areas and
trade and services to
consumer
Trade and
services to
producer

Centers of
employment

Industry

Houses of
workers
Agglomeration economies
In general, studies yield results in
the sense that economies of
agglomeration are determinants of the
locational behavior and therefore of the
dispersion of economic activity in the
city, but these economies can
to be generated in specialized subcenters and not
they are already linked to the central district, hence
it may be convenient to call them economies of
concentration and not just economies of
centralization.
Relocation
The monocentric model of urban development assumes the
existence of increasing returns to scale consequently,
the city center will be the only place where it will take place
productive activities.
The concentration in that location maximizes the demand and
minimize transportation costs by being related to the
distance. However, these advantages do not hold.
indefinitely, since as the city grows, costs increase
of transportation, which weakens the economies of
congestion due to the exhaustion of yields
increasing scale and rising transportation costs.
In such a way that there will be a maximum density threshold from
from which the net benefits are nullified and it leads to
produce the relocation of economic activity in a new
place.
Congestion
The smaller sub-centers will attract activities and their
characteristics will depend on the economic activities, already
sea industry, commerce, and services.
Agglomeration economies and diseconomies are the
economic forces that explain the formation of subcenters,
through the tension between these two forces is what explains the
type of urban spatial structure of the city, mainly the
which corresponds to a polycentric model.
Agglomeration economies are generated in the center, not
however, they are gradually being extinguished until they give way to
diseconomies of agglomeration that range from diseconomies
financial - high land values and wages - to congestion of
traffic and pollution, which leads to decentralization of
economic activity and population.
Conurbation
This is often facilitated because in those
locations are found the subcenters in the centers
of the ancient towns or villages, that have been
absorbed by the expansion of the metropolis,
around new areas of activity with thresholds
far superior to the norm (educational complexes,
doctors, offices, multimodal transport terminal or
a suburban shopping center.
This type of urban development fosters conurbation
from two urban centers. These places later
they attract more non-residential activities, new
jobs and population
Need for theory
However, despite the importance of this
type of urban development, there is a lack of a
theory and models that explain that type of
development.
In the United States in the era of the
the 1920s, when the city
it surpassed the political-administrative limits
of the area that originally contained it, in
in our case the legal basis of the city and/or the
municipality, characterized it as development
metropolitan
Metropolization
Metropolitan urban development is the urban form
in which the process of urban center expansion
on its periphery, is characterized by the formation of
subcenters of economic activity and cores of
population that allows decentralization and
urban expansion of the original central core and that
they maintain relationships of domination-dependence
economic and spatial.
It involves functional relationships between Metropolis-Colony.
between its subcenters and their areas of influence, what
gives rise to the emergence of large cities that
they generally exceed their legal foundation by integrating others
political-administrative demarcations.
Contiguity?
The metropolitan model of urban development
does not necessarily imply contiguity
physics of the urban sprawl, but rather the
Interaction between economic-functional areas
that economically integrate the city.
So that it can integrate peripheral areas
not contiguous to the urban sprawl but that
economically and functionally are part of the
city. This integration is carried out through
the transportation routes.
Megalopolis
The concept of Megalopolis refers to the concept
of an urban economic region constituted by
a set of area systems
large metropolitan areas.
Urban centers characterized by their
enormous physical and population growth, which
which results in millions
population and activity concentrations
economic as well as an extraordinary
physical expansion of the city
Mexico

The criterion adopted in our country for

consider an urban locality by the
the number of inhabitants is 2,500 while
that are considered internationally
localities of 15 thousand inhabitants.
It is worth mentioning that this population criterion,
it is not enough to consider a
settlement as urban, especially in the
case of our country, as it is insufficient.
United States

In the United States, the criteria

used to delimit their areas
metropolitan areas, which corresponds to a
central city is 50,000 or more
inhabitants, or of two contiguous cities
that make up the same population of to
less than 50,000 inhabitants and a minimum
of a population of 15,000 for the younger.
Density
Mexico as
country itself
characterized by
a density Table 3.13 Population Density of the 5 Most Important Delegations
average of Population Density
population of Delegation 2007 (Hab/Km2)
54.52 Iztapalapa 1,820,888 15,071.4
hab/km2
Gustavo A. Madero 1,193,161 12,967.1
while
the city of Álvaro Obregón 706,567 7,608.1
Mexico like Coyoacán 628,063 11,042.3
everything is yours
Tlalpan 607,545 2,041.6
density of
inhabitants per
kilometer
square is
5,881.1