Geography (settlement)

A Burgess model is the layout of a city divided into several areas based on its size and location.

An MEDC Burgess Model normally has 4 rings starting with CBD (Central Business District) at the middle, then Inner City, Suburbs and RUF (Rural Urban Fringe); but sometimes it may come up as 5 rings including Inner Suburbs and Outer Suburbs.

CBD (Central Business District) also known as the city centre, where most services are allocated. There are lots of offices and banks in there, big shopping mall mainly selling high order goods e.g designer clothes,furniture and easy access transport links e.g train station, bus stop and coach station. Land value in this particular area is very expensive therefore buildings are more likely to build up high (skyscrapers).

The problems in this area would be: air pollution, noise pollution, lots of traffic congestion and road accidents. Solutions to these problems would be: Park & Ride where people can park their cars outside the city centre and a free coach is provided to travel to the city centre; this could reduce the level of pollution in the city centre as there will be less cars travelling to there and also more likely in result of less traffic congestion. Moreover there will be less road accidents. Pedestrianisation and making underground (subway) could prevent pedestrians getting run over.

Inner City is often the oldest part of the city where most industries used to locate. Houses in this area are mainly terraced with no car park and perhaps with a small garden. There are lots of Brownfield sites in this area where lands have been used before for industrial purposes. This area is likely to have a High Street selling a range of middle order goods e.g stationeries, clothes and low order goods e.g milk, bread.

Problems in this area would be high unemployment rate as there are a lot of factory workers who are without a job now since the industry in UK declined; this means these people are left behind when factories and businesses moved away to elsewhere and richer people are more likely to move to live in the RUF. High unemployment rate means increase in crime as people are running out of money. Schools are bad and people are more likely to leave school without qualification and skills, which means they are more likely to be unemployed. Businesses are less likely to invest money into this area due to the bad image or reputation. Government could not receive much taxes from this particular part of the city as people are without jobs and therefore government has less money to improve the infrastructure of the city. This is called the Cycle of Poverty. Solutions to these problems are: development from the Central Government e.g LDDC (London Dockland Development Corporation) and development on Brownfield sites where new facilities or buildings can be built where the factories used to be located.

This area is mainly use for housing with a little services e.g schools and a few shops. Houses are semi-detached with a garage. Land value is cheaper compare to thr CBD and Inner city.

RUF (Rural Urban Fringe) the edge of the city also known as the countryside. There are large proportion of RUF in a city which its main land use purpose is for housing estates, farms, golf courses, hypermarkets and country parks. Houses in this area are the cheapest in the city designed as detached housing with double garage and large garden. This area is mainly targeted to upper class people who would like both luxery and wide life. Motorways are located in this area which is an advantage to the residents to travel to work into the city centre and to other cities aswell.

Problems in this area are: urban sprawl (the spreading of its size of a city), pollution and development to the RUF could affect the wildlife and local residents. Solutions to these problems could be having more greenbelt sites where developers are restricted to develop an area by law; this could reduce the growing of urban sprawl and also obtain certain parts of RUF to be kept as it is.