Topic 6.5 The Internal Structure of Cities: explain the models that describe the internal structure of cities, including the Burgess, Hoyt, multiple-nuclei, and regional urban models.

What this topic is asking

Topic 6.5 covers the models of the internal land-use structure of cities. The College Board wants you to explain the classic North American models, the Burgess concentric zone, Hoyt sector, multiple-nuclei, and galactic (peripheral) city models, and the regional models of cities in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. The skill is to apply and contrast these models and read how a city's land use is arranged.

The classic North American models

Three foundational models describe land use in industrial-era cities.

Each model captures a real force: Burgess shows growth outward from a single core; Hoyt shows the pull of transport corridors; multiple-nuclei shows specialization as cities grow large.

The galactic city and the bid-rent link

A fourth model captures the modern, car-shaped city.

The galactic (peripheral) city model describes a dispersed metropolis built around freeways, with edge cities (clusters of offices, malls, and services) on the periphery rather than a single dominant center. It reflects suburbanization and the automobile.

All these models rest on the bid-rent idea (Topic 6.6): land near the center is most accessible and so most expensive, which sorts land use by what each user can pay, just as transport cost and rent sort uses in the Von Thünen model (Topic 5.8).

Regional models: Latin American, Southeast Asian, African

City structure varies by world region and colonial history.

The key contrast: in North American models the wealthy commute outward to the suburbs, while in many developing-world models the wealthy live near the center and the poor on the periphery.

Why this matters for the exam

Topic 6.5 is one of the most modelled topics in the course. FRQs ask you to describe a model, explain why a model fits modern cities, or contrast a regional model with the North American ones, so practice applying the rings, wedges, and nuclei, and the bid-rent logic that underlies them, and the developing-world reversal.

Try this

Q1. Identify the key difference between the Burgess and Hoyt models. [Recall]

• Cue. Burgess arranges land use in concentric rings around the central business district; Hoyt arranges it in sectors or wedges radiating outward along transport routes.

Q2. Explain one way the Latin American city model differs from the North American models. [Short explanation]

• Cue. In the Latin American model the wealthy live near the center along a commercial spine while squatter settlements form on the periphery, reversing the North American pattern where the wealthy commute out to the suburbs.