The big idea: Cities are not random — different economic activities (shops, offices, factories, housing) sort themselves into zones.
The key driver is land value: the price of land falls as you move away from the Central Business District (CBD). The activity that can pay the most wins the most accessible, most expensive site.
This is the bid-rent idea — and it is the spine of every Option G land-use question.
Key terms for urban land use
- CBD (Central Business District) — the commercial core: shops, offices, banks. The most accessible point.
- Land value — the price (or rent) of a piece of land. Highest at the CBD, falling outwards.
- Peak land-value point (PLVP) — the single most expensive site, usually a main CBD junction.
- Bid-rent — each land use will only pay so much for a site; the highest bidder gets it.
- Economic activity — retail, commercial (offices), industry, services and housing.
- Accessibility — how easy a site is to reach; high accessibility raises land value.
Why land value matters: The activity in any spot is the one that can afford that land.
Shops and offices out-bid everyone for the CBD because high footfall = high profit per square metre.
Industry and housing are pushed outwards to cheaper land where they can spread out.
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How this is tested: The stimulus here is usually a bid-rent graph — land value plotted against distance from the CBD — or an urban map you read alongside it. The skill is to Estimate [1] a value off the axis and Describe [2] the falling trend, then Outline [2] / Explain [3-6] why land values vary and why each activity sits where it does.
Whatever the figure, tie every point back to land value and accessibility.
Read the axes first. Where is the curve steepest, and what is the land value at 3 km?
Interactive diagram
Explore the labelled diagram, charts and maps for this topic in full study mode.
Using the graph, describe how land value changes with distance from the CBD.
Model answer plan
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| Distance from CBD | Land value (index, peak = 100) | Activity that can pay |
|---|---|---|
| 0 km (CBD / peak land-value point) | 100 | Shops, offices, banks — high footfall, need accessibility |
| 1 km (inner city) | 55 | Older flats, small workshops, some retail |
| 3 km (inner suburbs) | 30 | Terraced and semi-detached housing |
| 6 km (outer suburbs) | 15 | Detached housing, schools, parks |
| 10 km (urban edge) | 8 | Industry, warehouses, retail parks — need cheap, spacious land |
Read the bid-rent table like a graph: As distance from the CBD rises, land value falls (100 → 8). The activity column shows the swap: high-value retail/offices at the core, then housing, then space-hungry industry on cheap edge land. A data question just asks you to read or describe this fall.
Concentric model (Burgess) — rings around the CBD
- Ring 1 — CBD: shops, offices; highest land value.
- Ring 2 — inner city / transition: old industry and low-cost housing.
- Ring 3 — inner suburbs: older terraced housing.
- Ring 4 — outer suburbs: newer, larger housing on cheaper land.
- Ring 5 — urban edge: commuter zone, industry, retail parks.
Sector model (Hoyt) — wedges along routes
- Land use grows in wedges (sectors) out from the CBD, following transport routes (roads, rail, rivers).
- Industry follows a rail or river corridor — cheap, flat, well-connected land.
- High-cost housing forms its own wedge on attractive land (hills, away from industry).
- It improves on Burgess by adding the pull of transport and physical site.
Using ideas about land value, outline one reason why land is worth more in some parts of a city than others.
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Land value sets the broad pattern, but physical, economic and political factors decide the detail. Examiners want the mechanism — name a factor, then explain how it pushes an activity to a site.
| Factor type | Example factor | How it shapes the location |
|---|---|---|
| Physical | Flat land / relief | Industry and airports need flat, cheap land — steep slopes and floodplains are avoided |
| Physical | Coast / river site | Ports and old industry cluster at the waterfront for transport and water |
| Economic | Land value / bid-rent | Only high-profit retail and offices can afford the costly CBD; housing and industry move out |
| Economic | Accessibility | Retail wants high footfall at the CBD; warehouses want motorway junctions on the edge |
| Political | Planning / zoning | Councils zone land, protect green belt and grant or refuse permission, fixing where uses can go |
| Political | Regeneration policy | Government schemes re-use old docks or factories, changing a district's function |
Barcelona & Singapore — physical and political factors: In Barcelona, the flat coastal plain held the dense grid-iron CBD, while industry took the level land by the port — a physical control. Planning then converted the old industrial seafront for the 1992 Olympics into housing and leisure — a political control reshaping land use.
In Singapore, tight government zoning deliberately places industry on reclaimed coastal land and high-value finance in the CBD — land use here is planned, not left to the market.
Lagos & Detroit — the economy reshapes activity: In Lagos (a fast-growing megacity), formal jobs are too few for the population, so a vast informal economy — street trading, small workshops, repair stalls — fills the gap, clustering on cheap, accessible roadside land.
In Detroit, the collapse of car manufacturing left huge areas of derelict factories and housing — when the economic activity that paid for the land vanished, the land use emptied out.
Explain why informal economic activity is important in a fast-growing megacity such as Lagos.
Model answer plan
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Always give the mechanism: Don't just name a factor — show the chain. Flat coastal land → cheap + accessible → industry locates there. High CBD land value → only retail/offices can pay → housing pushed out.
How this is tested — the [10] Examine essay: Paper 1, Option G ends with a 10-mark Examine essay, marked on markbands. The recurring version asks how physical, economic and political factors (and land values) decide where economic activities locate in cities.
Top band needs: accurate terms, two or more developed factors with a named city, a weighing of their relative importance / interaction, and a clear conclusion.
How to weigh the factors: Land value sets the broad rings (retail in, industry out), but it is not the whole story.
Physical site (flat land, coast) and political planning (zoning, regeneration, green belt) can override the market — Singapore's zoning and Barcelona's Olympic regeneration put activities where policy, not pure bid-rent, decided. A top answer judges which factor dominates and when.
Examine the importance of physical factors and land values, relative to other influences, in deciding where economic activities locate within cities.
Model answer plan
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