Urban Geography (GeES3025)

CHAPTER 3
3. INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF TOWNS AND CITIES
3.1. Cities as service centres
Cities are not simply random agglomeration of buildings and people. They exhibit functional structure;
they are spatially organized to perform their functions as places of commerce, production, education and
much [Link] as what Christaller developed generalizations about the spacing of cities and towns, it is
possible to prepare the idealized model about the internal layout of the metropolitan city. How and
where the various residential and nonresidential components of the city are positioned with respect to
each other.

3.2. The Central Business District (CBD)

What is Central Business District? The central area of cities is commonly referred to as the Central
Business District (CBD). The city center is the biggest single concentration of employment, and it is the
hub of commercial and retail activity in the city. The CBD can broadly be defined as the area of highest
land values. It is not a homogeneous area. The CBD can be considered as consisting of two interrelated
parts of a city: the CBD core and the CBD frame. The CBD Core: the CBD core is the area of intensive
land use with multi-story dwellings, housing offices, retail shops,consumer services, theaters and banks.
It has the highest concentration of pedestrian flows and an absence of permanent residential population.
The CBD frame: the CBD frame is an area of semi-intensive land use surrounding the core where land
use is dominated by warehouses, car sales and services, transport terminals, manufacturing and some
institutional uses.
 The Central Business District (CBD): is usually found in the city Centre and contains major
shops, government buildings and headquarters of financial services.
 The CBD is regarded also as the Centre for retailing and service industries (e.g. bankers and
officers).
 It contains the principal commercial streets and main public buildings and so forms the core of a
city’s business and commercial activities.
Some characteristics of the CBD
 It contains the major retailing out lets. The principal departments’ stores and specialist shops
with the highest turnover and requiring largest threshold populations compete for the prime
[Link] contains a high proportion of the city’s main offices.
 It has the highest land values in the city and it is constantly undergoing change.

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  A concentration of the tallest buildings in the city or higher vertical growth which is due to high
rents resulting from competition for land a concentration of the greatest number of pedestrians
and a concentration of the greatest valance of traffic.

3.3. Theories of Urban Structure

Within larger urban areas, there are a number of different functional zones. This term refers to different
activities, which tend to take place in different parts of a city with in the city. Discussions of internal
spatial structure have been dominated by a series of models that are usually called classical models, and
they are based on the work done by scholars at the University of Chicago in the first years of the
20thcentury. The first one is called the Concentric Zone Model; the second, the Sector Model; and third,
the Multiple Nuclei [Link] the models are based on the notion of ecology and the notion of
competition among land uses. They use the biological models of succession and invasion, meaning that
when one land use invades another, it will grow, flourish, and replace the land use that it invades.

3.3.1. The Concentric Theory

Burgess (1924) attempted to identify areas with in Chicago. The basis for his model was the outward
expansion of the city and the socio- economic groupings of its inhabitants. He used the then current
concepts of plant ecology as had been presented by the University of Chicago and applied ecological
terms such as invasion, competition, dominance and succession to groups of people.

Basic assumptions of Concentric Theory (Model)

Although the main aim of his model was to describe residential structures of a city, subsequently
geographers have presumed that Burgess made certain assumptions. These include:

 The city was built up on flat isotropic surface with equal advantages in all direction. i.e., he
ignored morphological features such as river valleys.
 Transport systems were of limited significance being equally easy, rapid and cheap in every
direction.
 Land values were highest in the center of the city and declined with distance out wards to give a
zoning of urban functions and land use.

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  The oldest buildings were in or close to the city center with progressively newer ones towards the
city boundary.
 Cities contained a variety of well – defined socio – economic and ethnic areas.
 The poorer classes had to live near to the city center and places of work, as they could not afford
transport or expensive housing.

1. Loop (Central Business District)

CBD (loop) is characterized as follows:
 It is a principal element of all major models of urban land use.
 Although some CBDs experience fierce competition from business nuclei elsewhere in the city,
most cities retain a strong downtown.
 It is accessible.
 It is the zone of commercial, social and cultural hub. The first and smallest zone is the central
business district (CBD). This is the focus of the commercial, social and cultural life of the city,
and the area where land values are highest. Only activities where profits are high enough to meet
the rent demanded can locate in the area.
 It is the heart of the zone is the downtown shopping area with large department stores and the
most exclusive shops.

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2. Zone of Transition
Generally, the characteristics of transition zone can summarized as follows:
 It is Immediately adjacent to the CBD
 Early in the history of the city, this formed a suburban fringe that housed many of the merchants
and well-to-do citizens.
 With the growth of the city, however, industries encroached into this zone from the inner zone,
and the quality of the residential environment deteriorated.
 The inner margins of the zone in transition are industrial and its outer ring is composed of
declining neighborhoods.
 The population of the zone is heterogeneous and includes first-generation immigrants as well as
older residents.
 It is also an area frequented by vagrants and criminals, and rates of crime and mental illness are
the highest in the city.
 property is run-down in this zone
 A highly mobile population characterizes the zone.
 Not surprisingly, as people prosper they tend to move out into Zone III, leaving behind the
elderly, the isolated and the helpless.

3. Zone of independent workers homes

 The population consists of the families of factory and shop workers who have managed to
prosper sufficiently to escape the zone in transition but who still need cheap and easy access to
their workplaces.
 The zone is focused on factories, and its population forms the bulk of what may be termed the
respectable working class.
 Unlike in the ‘childless’ zone in transition, all age groups are represented.

4. Zone of Better Residence

 It is a zone of private housing or good apartment blocks.
 It is the home of the middle class.
 At strategic locations, subsidiary shopping centers have developed as mini versions of the
downtown shopping area.
5. Zone of Commuters
This zone lies in the urban -rural fringes.
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 This is essentially a suburban dormitory zone characterized by single-family dwellings.
It is the zone of high class residential with expensive houses and the highest cost of commuter’s
is found here. According to Brugess, as we move from zone one to zone five, accessibility is
declined.

Beyond these five main zones, Burgess sometimes recognized two additional areas such as the
surrounding agricultural district and the wider hinterland of the city.

Criticism of Burgess’s Model

 Zones are never, in reality, as clear cut as in the model
 Zones usually contain more than one type of land use
 The model is too simple and limited in historical and cultural applications up to the 1950s. It is a
product of its time.
 Insufficient importance was attached to industry
 Cities are rarely built in flat plains
 The model was developed when American cities were growing very fast in demographic terms
and when motorized transportation was still uncommon as most people used public transit.
Expansion thus involved reconversion of land uses. This concept cannot be applied in a
contemporary (from the second half to the 20th century) context where highways have enabled
urban development to escape the reconversion process and to take place directly in the suburbs.
 The model was developed for American cities and has limited applicability elsewhere
 The model did not consider characteristics of cities in the third world.
 The oldest housing is not always in or near the city center
 There were a lot of spatial differences in terms of ethnic, social and occupational status, while
there was low occurrence of the functional differences in land use patterns.
 Insufficient weighting was given to transport.
 However, the Burgess model remains useful as a concept explaining concentric urban
development, as a way to introduce the complexity of urban land use and to explain urban
growth in American cities in the early-mid 20th century.

3.3.2. The Sector Theory

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What are the basic ides of sector model/theory? This model was developed by Hoyt in 1939. The earliest
constructive criticism of Burgess’s model emerged from an analysis of the internal residential structure
of 142 American cities by Hoyt (1939). Hoyt’s model was based on the mapping of eight housing
variables for 142 cities in the USA. He tried to account for changes in and the distribution of residential
patterns. By mapping the average residential rent values for every block in each city, Hoyt concluded
that the general spatial arrangement was characterized better by sectors than by concentric zones. Thus
the effect of direction was added to the effect of distance. Communication axes, such as rail lines and
major roads, are mainly responsible for the creation of sectors, thus transport has directional effect on
land uses. Cities would thus grow along major axis.

Basic assumption: Hoyt made the same implicit assumptions as had Burgess, with the addition of three
new assumptions:
 Wealthy people who could afford the highest rates chose the best sites, i.e., competition based on
ability to pay resolved land use conflicts.
 Wealthy residents could afford the private cars or public transport, so lived further from industry
and nearer to main roads.
 Similar land uses attracted other similar land uses, concentrating a function in a particular area
and repelling others. This attracts and repels process led to sector development.

A major contrast between the models of Burgess and Hoyt is that whereas residential change is
stimulated on the demand side in Burgess’s model, with immigrants competing for inner-city housing,
Hoyt stresses supply-side mechanisms, with the construction of new housing for the middle classes on
the urban periphery (and subsequent filtering of vacated dwellings) being the catalyst for socio-spatial
change. Hoyt’s model does not replace the concentric-zone scheme but extends it by adding the concept
of direction to that of distance from the city center. A major weakness of the theory is that it largely
ignores land uses other than residential, and it places undue emphasis on the economic characteristics of
areas, ignoring other important factors, such as race and ethnicity, which may underlie urban land-use
change.

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Fig 3.2 sector model
Criticism of Hoyt’s Model: Many criticisms are similar to those of Burgess, e.g. cities are not always
built on flat land; Zones do not always have distinct boundaries and often contain more than one type
of land use. Hoyt based his model on housing and neglected other land [Link] of low cost housing
do occur beside main roads near to the boundaries of most [Link] was assumed that there were no
planning laws or [Link] cities in the USA were studied.

3.3.3. The Multiple Nuclei Model

Ullman and Harris in 1945 have developed this model. They produce a more realistic model than those
of Burgess and Hoyt but consequently ended with one that was more complex and may become
descriptive rather than [Link] are the main ideas of the Multiple Nuclei Theory?

The excessive simplicity of the concentric ring and sector models of the city was addressed by Harris
and Ullman (1945), who observed that most large cities do not grow around a single CBD but are
formed by the progressive integration of a number of separate nuclei. A number of controlling factors
determines the location and growth of multiple nuclei:
 Some activities repel each other owing to negative externality effects, as seen in the separation of
high-income residences from industry.
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  Certain activities require specialized facilities and congregate where these are available. Industry,
for example, requires transport facilities and is often located close to railway lines, major roads or
port facilities.
 Similar activities group together to profit from external economies of association, leading to the
emergence of specialized legal districts or financial quarters.
 Some activities which could benefit from a central location in or near the CBD, but which cannot
afford the high rents demanded, must locate elsewhere. Warehousing or grocery wholesaling are
examples of activities that require large structures and would benefit from a central location but
are forced to ‘trade off’ space for accessibility
Figure 3.3: Multiple Nuclei Theory

Basic assumptions:
 Modern cities have a more complex structure than that suggest by Burgess and Hoyt.
 Cities do not grow from one CBD but from several independent nuclei.
 Each nucleus acts as a growth point and probably has a function different from other nuclei with
in that city e.g. administrative, retail or transport.

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  In time then will be an out ward growth from each nucleus until they merge as one large urban
center.
 If the city becomes too large and congested then some functions may be dispersed to new nuclei
e.g., an edge of city shopping center or around a new airport.

The value of the Harris and Ullman model lies in its explicit recognition of the multimodal nature of
urban growth. Furthermore, they argue that land uses cannot always be predicted since industrial,
cultural and socioeconomic values will have different impacts on different cities. While the Burgess
zonal pattern and, to a lesser extent, the Hoyt sectoral pattern suggest inevitable predetermining patterns
of location, Harris and Ullman suggest that land-use patterns vary depending on local context. Hence,
the multiple-nuclei model may be closer to reality.

3.3.4. Central Place Theory

Describe the main idea of central place theory. Christaller’s spatial-equilibrium theory is fundamentally
economic in approach and sets out to predict how, through competition for space, an optimal pattern of
settlement will emerge. Like all models, central place theory represents a simplification of reality and is
predicated on a number of assumptions. Walther Christaller (1933) was first man who began an analysis
of central place theory. The aim of the author is to establish a deductive theory, which reveals the
“ordering principle" in the distribution of towns. Christaller justifiably set his ideas alongside with that
of Von Thunen in reaction to agricultural productions and Weber’s in relation to industrial location.

According to Christaller, centrality the degree to which a town serves its surrounding areas can be
measured in terms of the goods and services offered. However, the quality and quantity of goods and
services are different in orders such as some are costly purchased, some needs large populations to
sustain them and others are everyday needs and will require small people. From this, two of the
fundamental concepts emerge threshold and range.

What are the basic assumptions of central place theory?To develop the theory, Christaller made the
following simplifying assumptions:An unbounded isotropic (all flat), homogeneous, limitless surface
(abstract space).
 An evenly distributed population
 All settlements are equidistant and exist in a triangular lattice pattern

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  Evenly distributed resources
 Distance decay mechanism.
 Perfect competition and all sellers are economic people maximizing their profits.
 Consumers are of the same income level and same shopping behavior.
 All consumers have a similar purchasing power and demand for goods and services.
 Consumers visit the nearest central places that provide the function that they demand. They
minimize the distance to be travelled
 No provider of goods or services is able to earn excess profit (each supplier has a monopoly
over a hinterland.

Centrality is the degree to which a place serves itssurrounding area, and this can be gauged only in
termsof the goods and services offered. Clearly, there are differentorders of goods and services: some
are costly,bought infrequently, and need a large population tosupport them (e.g. furniture, jewelry);
others areeveryday needs and require a small population ([Link]). From this, two concepts
emerge:
1. The threshold population: The threshold is defined as the minimum population required for a good
or service to be provided – that is, the minimum demand to make the good or service [Link]
Threshold population-is the minimum population required to sustain the provision of a particular
good or service. It may be as low as 250 for a corner shop or as high as 150,000 for a theatre. If the
population falls below the threshold level, the activity will run at a loss and will face closure in the
long run. If the population increases above the minimum, the activity will increase its profits, which
may also lead to increased competition through increased provision of service activities. The
frequency of use of the service is of course a vital influence on the threshold population.
2. The range of a good: This is the maximum distance, which people will travel to purchase a good or
service. At some range from the central place, the inconvenience of travel as measured in time,The
Market Range:The market range of a service activity is the maximum distance which people are
willing to travel to reach the service. It is the outer limit of the market area for the service activity
beyond which people will look to another center. For example, people may be willing to travel to the
nearest large town for jewelers and good clothing but only to the local corner shop for sweets and
tobacco.
The order of services offered by the central place determines the size and distribution of urban
centers.
 Higher order services - larger and more widely spaced;
 main
In general, the Lowercriticisms
order services - smaller
directed and less widely
at central-place spaced
theory can be summarized in the following way:
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  The theory is not applicable to all settlements. Being limited to service centers, it does not
include some of the functions, such as manufacturing industry, that create employment and
population.
 The economic determinism of the theory takes no account of random historical factors that can
influence the settlement pattern.
 The theory makes unrealistic assumptions about the information levels and mental acumen
required to achieve rational economic decisions, even if profit maximization were the only goal
of human behavior.
 The notion of a homogeneous population ignores the variety of individual circumstances.

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