Is the Burgess Model still applicable today?

The land-use model (pictured below) is known as the Burgess Model or the Concentric Zone Model and was created by the geographer Ernest Burgess in 1924. But is it still applicable to the growing international cities of today?

Image courtesy of BBC

 

The model, originally based on the city of Chicago, was the first to give the explanation of the distribution of social groups within urban areas. It was designed to show what a typical city is most likely to look like in terms of land use. This model is based on the idea that land values are highest in the centre of a city because competition is high in the central parts of the cities which leads to high-rise, high-density buildings being found near the Central Business District (CBD), with low-density, sparse developments on the edge of the town or city. It can loosely be applied to a city such as London; in general land prices are most expensive in the CBD. This is because of the vast number of passers-by and also the expansive transport network. And in general, the further out of the city you go, the cheaper the land prices, although there are of course exceptions, for example, an area such as Knightsbridge in which the average asking price for a house is £2,443,942 is further out than Holborn but house prices in Holborn are cheaper at £1,535,033.

However, there are limits to the Burgess model:

•The model is now quite old and was developed before transport networks were so prominent in the lives of many people. Car's weren't widely owned and getting around was much harder than it is today.

•The development of the internet and telephone has led to increased business being done through technology, with some companies opting to locate in a cheaper location further out. Furthermore, many people now choose to live and work outside the city on the urban fringe -  this is not reflected in the Burgess model.

•Every city is different. There is no such thing as a typical city. Burgess based this model upon, one city, Chicago and it therefore cannot be applied globally.

So in conclusion, although the model can loosely be applied to most modern day cities, it is very hard to consider this as a precise model of the modern day city and there are now too many factors, independent to each city, that mean it is unlikely another model, of suitable precision, could be created.