Central business district investigation Essay

Introduction: The inner city is the zone between the central business district (CBD) and the suburban housing areas. In British cities the inner city grew during the industrial revolution. Factories were built on the edge of the historic towns, now the CBD. Many people view inner city areas as rather dull and depressing as they tend to be overcrowded and polluted. Unfortunately even though the problems of inner city areas are apparent the local councils and business and invested a greater proportion of money in CBD rather then inner cities, which has lead to an escalating problems. The Diagram illustrates the burgess conurbation model, which highlights the various areas of a conurbation settlement: The burgess model of urban land consists of five concentric circles arranged around a CBD inner core. All conurbation models initiates with the central business district (CBD), which forms the heart of a settlement. Large businesses exist here since they are the only ones able to afford the high land values and rents. The inner city is the 2nd zone in the burgess model. This zone represents old industry established at the birth of the city. The third zone is known as the â€Å"Low-class residential† which is located in the inner city close to the old industries. This was because the poor who worked in these industries had to be local. The medium class residential represents the penultimate zone. This is more expensive housing catering for the moderately wealthy populace. The final zone is the high class residential located in the rural urban fringe. This is the most affluent area and caters for the wealthiest element in the population. According to this model, cities grow outwards from the original site; therefore properties are younger on the outskirts of the city. – The Burgess Urban Land Use Model In 1925, E. W. Burgess presented an urban land use model, which divided cities in a set of concentric circles expanding from the downtown to the suburbs. This representation was built from Burgess’s observations of a number of American cities, notably Chicago. The main characteristic of the inner city was for the industries to build factories to maximise production. The land was cheap and there was room for expansion for the industries. Houses were constructed local to the factories so that workers would not need.