Concentric Zone

I decided to write this paper about two zones of Hartford, Connecticut due that I was doing an assessment of the areas of the city for another class. A little of geography: Hartford is the Capital city of Connecticut. It has a population of 124,512 habitants distributed into 18.5 square miles. (Hartford has it, 2016), and is consider one of the largest cities of Connecticut after Bridgeport and New Haven. The city is located in the center of the State and has access to the principal highways of the State. It is consider the Insurance Capital of the world due that many Insurance companies have their headquarter in the city.

Newark’s residents usually identify themselves by which of the five political wards in they make their home in, and occasionally by the individual neighborhood in which they live. The East and South Wards of the city are mostly given over to industrial use and contain most of the airport and seaport lands. The city’s residential areas are largely concentrated in the North, Central, and West Wards. The size of the wards is dictated by New Jersey State Law. The largest ward in the city may not be more than ten percent of the average ward size larger, by population, than the smallest. This requirement necessitates the redrawing of ward boundaries on a somewhat regular basis.

Historically, Chicago has been and always will be a city of change both industrially and agriculturally to the metropolis we know and revere today with skyscrapers and culture abound. In order for the city to become the industrial hub, changes were made to the natural landscapes to accommodate business and residency. Steel became the staple good, and green spaces were demolished during the expansion of industry in the Calumet region by the masses in the creation of steel for railroad tracks and structural steel for commercial buildings. For geographical ambiance, The Calumet region of Chicago is consisted of the following neighborhoods: Burnside, Calumet Heights, East Side, Hegewisch, and Pullman, South Chicago, and South Deering. In this

categories. Downtown became the common term used to define the area of the city where the

With this development came many land speculators. It was widely known that with transportation comes a greater demand for the land being developed. Developers built rows of luxury

Due to house shortages on the inner city, a massive pop up of suburban housing grew on the edge of the city limits. increase d vehicle production, federal highway system expansions, and veteran mortgage programs encouraged the newly created middle to buy larger family homes on the outskirts of the city.

Housing and Zoning Crowded, lots of brick and cement; few parks, cars parked very closely together on street. Some areas show severe urban blight.

This theory is often referred to as a Concentric Zone Theory.# Burgess believed that as cities expand in size, the development is patterned socially and argued that the city of Chicago could be described in terms of five concentric zones. It was by a competitive process that decided how people were distributed spatially amongst the zones.# The most expensive residential areas were in the outer zones, away from the chaotic atmosphere in the city centre, the pollution caused by factories and the homes of the poor. However, Burgess placed great importance on the ‘zone of transition '. The zone of transition was an area of great social upheaval, which contained deteriorating tenements, often built in the shadow of ageing factories. This zone was described as the least desirable living area and was the focus for the influx of waves of immigrants, as this was the only place the immigrants could afford to reside. This lead to weak family and communal ties which resulted in ‘social disorganisation and it was this disorganisation that was presented as the primary explanation of criminal behaviour.#

While immigration was reaching an all-time high, cities were growing larger by the day. De facto segregation caused different districts and neighborhoods to form throughout the city. Some cities adopted a ward system as a type of local mini-government for local regulations. As a need for leisure time and recreation became more and more necessary, the need for free and safe public places was vital. Frederick Law

This is when both land use and the building density gets regulate by the local government. This has attracted developers because most of the zones have been marked as under developed. Research shows that over 300 single families are in the under developed zones. This means that the developers can buy these single homes and build storey's that will accommodate many families without the

As the city 's center becomes older and less desirable, the value goes down. This then attracts people who want to be centrally located, and now in the 21st century people tend to believe that the suburbs have less “character” and that most cities are considered to be “edgy” and “urban”, which is another reason as to why young, wealthy, white workers want to be located in the inner-city. Our pop culture is heavily influenced by black culture, so young people want to live where it’s hip, as well as reasonable.

After World War II, the United States of America became a much wealthier nation. As America gained wealth and the populations in urban cities and transportation technology increased, many Americans spread out, away from the urban cities, to fulfill the common dream of having a piece of land to call their own. The landscape constructed became known as the suburbs, exclusive residential areas within commuting distance of a city. The popularity and success of the suburban landscape caused suburbs to sprawl across the United States, from the east coast to the west coast and along the borders between Canada and Mexico. By the 1990s, many suburbs surrounding major urban cities developed into being more than merely exclusive residential areas.

Our cities offer close proximity to services, entertainment and employment. Building high density housing within reach of the main sectors of the hub

Many downtowns first emerged as a distinctive place due to elite residents with homes in the area, which served as meeting places for important business transactions. By the late 19th century downtowns had typically been laid out with designated business blocks (Ford 2003). The growth of the business block as an economic center and booming downtown forced out any competition that were not appropriate with “high rents, social pressure and architectural change” (Ford 2003, pp 45). This was the origin of the spatial structure and land use patterns that are associated with contemporary downtowns. The origin of the town structure is most commonly affiliated with European cities as models of spatial layout. Specialty business and retail districts that characterized American downtowns and what we now image a good downtown to be are directly linked to it European counterpart. The key characteristic that defer from the European model was the tendency for American cities to be street-oriented rather then place-oriented. This contributed to the more linear structure of the city, business pursued locations on the “main street” rather then near major plazas or religious buildings (Robertson 1997).

Burgess’s concentric zone theory was presented in 1924. He presented a descriptive urban land use model that divided cities in a set of concentric circles expanding from downtown to the suburbs. His representation came from Burgess’ observations of various American cities, especially Chicago. Burgess model assumes a relationship between the socio-economic status of households and the distance from the Central Business District. The further from the district, the better the quality of housing, but the longer the commuting time. Making this Accessing better housing is done at the expense of longer commuting times and costs as well. According to Burgess, urban growth is a process of expansion and reconversion of land uses, with a tendency of each inner zone to expand in the outer zone. According to Burgess’ theory, a large city is divided in six concentric zones, Burgess’s model has its cons according to critics. It is said to be a product of its time. That is, it won’t work the same with present cities. The model was developed when American cities were growing very fast and when motorized transportation was still uncommon as most people used public transit. Thus the concept cannot be applied to those from the second half to the twentieth century where highways have enabled urban development to escape the reconversion process and to take place directly in the suburbs. The model in this case was developed for American cities and is limited elsewhere.