Compare methods

	Concentric Zone Model	Gentrification Analysis
Field	Urban Studies	Urban Studies
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1925	1979
Originator	Ernest W. Burgess (Chicago School)	Ruth Glass (term, 1964); Neil Smith (rent-gap theory)
Type	Descriptive urban-ecology model of concentric land-use and social zones	Pipeline for detecting and measuring neighbourhood socioeconomic upgrading and displacement
Seminal source	Park, R. E., Burgess, E. W., & McKenzie, R. D. (1925). The City. University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 9780226646114	Smith, N. (1979). Toward a theory of gentrification: A back to the city movement by capital, not people. Journal of the American Planning Association, 45(4), 538–548.
Aliases	Burgess Model, Concentric Ring Model, Burgess Concentric Zone Theory, Urban Ecology Zonal Model	Gentrification Measurement, Neighbourhood Upgrading Analysis, Rent Gap Analysis, Displacement Risk Analysis
Related	4	4
Summary	The concentric zone model, formulated by sociologist Ernest Burgess of the Chicago School in the 1920s, describes the city as a set of concentric rings of land use and social structure expanding outward from a central business district. Each ring — from the commercial core, through a transitional zone of factories and tenements, to successive rings of workers' homes, better residences, and commuters — represents a stage in the city's outward growth. Published in the 1925 volume The City, it was the first influential model of urban spatial structure and treated the city through the lens of human ecology, with zones competing and invading one another like species in an ecosystem.	Gentrification analysis is the set of methods used to detect, measure, and map the process by which a previously disinvested, lower-income neighbourhood is upgraded through an influx of capital and higher-status residents, often displacing the existing population. It typically combines repeated small-area census data on income, education, tenure, and rents with housing-market indicators to compute change indices that flag where socioeconomic status is rising fastest. Grounded in Neil Smith's 1979 rent-gap theory, the analysis frames gentrification as the reinvestment of capital in places where the gap between actual and potential land rent has grown large enough to be profitable.