concentric zone theory

Created by Earnest W. Burgess and Robert E. Park during the 1920s

It was created to show that land uses were set up in zones, the concentric zone areas inadvertently had spacial urban organization meaning that residential, urban and all other types of buildings tend to say in similar areas and zones.

it is used to help value land areas.

this theory is said to describe chi city (chicago) according to Vera Miller, a student of Ernest Burgess, at the University of Chicago. Miller explained the the spatial distribution of tax delinquency according to Park and Burgess' model of urban ecology and concentric zone theory:

"The pattern of tax delinquency in Chicago in the period of this study appears to have been related to the pattern of the city's ecological development. As the city expanded outward, the encroachment of industry in the areas adjacent to the central business district blighted these sections. The original residents drifted outward and the inner neighborhoods were occupied successively by people with lower incomes unable to find dwellings elsewhere. Never fully utilized for industrial purposes and constantly deteriorating as residential areas, these sections became characterized by physical deterioration and social disorganization as well as by tax delinquency" (Miller in Burgess and Bogue 1964: 105).