MEDC Land Use Model

Land Use Models are split into two categories:

• The MEDC, rich city
• The LEDC, poor city

I'll be showing you the MEDC today, the LEDC is in the link below.

This model identifies MEDC city formations. The show what type of citizen lives there (Standard of living) and shows how the usual size and placement of each section.

The MEDC graph, shows the formation of a large wealthy city (example - London). The city is split into parts, they're named: CBD, Inner-City, Inner-Suburbs, Outer-Suburbs. A 'green belt' stops the city growing any further, out from there is wildlife and farmlands.

Each part can be identified by specific building structures and types of people living within the part. To understand the Land Use Model or 'Burgess Model' in full, you must look at every part, examine what references it has which makes the part unique.

This part is the easiest to spot, mainly because of the large, shadowing buildings which congregate within this section. The CBD is where almost all the offices are located and where mostly all of the government & royal houses are found. The CBD is where the most of the "money making jobs" are. That doesn't mean that's where the rich people live though, even though the CBD has the biggest skyscrapers in the city; the largest roads in the city and the largest income in the city, it doesn't have near to the largest population, against other parts.

Other than the large buildings, central business districts have modern high-streets, with a large variety of food; clothing; gift shops; etc. There may be small modern shopping centers that gain high-income from top quality brand names and large sales. McDonalds is very common in CBD's, due to it being a fast-food restaurant; many people within the CBD have office jobs and busy schedules, so a fast-food store is an easy way to grab a quick lunch.

On average, 21% of all people employed, will be working somewhere within the CBD. The average population of the CBD against the total city population is around 5% of the whole city.

Between the late Industrial Revolution to mid-1950's, millions of people would work day in/day out in nearby factories. As the car industry hadn't really hit the mass-markets till mid-30's, many employees would need work to be close by. Factory owners, along with government and council backing, started to build large terraced housing, which, in some streets, had over one thousand houses on both sides. When they were built, many of the houses were very large, fitting families of eight and over in. On almost every street, there was a corner shop, although not all of them were convince stores.

In the war years and in the many years past the war, terrace houses brought a great sense of community for many families, on Coronations, people would flock to the streets with tables and chairs, eating dinner together on the street. Almost all families in the street knew their neighbours. This sense of community has dropped since around the 1980's, with the expansion of cities and the prospect of moving to more desirable housing (Semi-detached, detached).

The Inner cities of most MEDC's have become derilict, with low standard brick-work and anti-social behaviour extinguishing the once, beautiful social interaction on the streets. There are some streets in the inner-city, which now contain near to no inhabitants, because nobody wants to live in houses which are turning to rubble before their very eyes. This doesn't go to every Inner City, many have re-developed and become nice terraced housing, although I believe the great sense of community has sufficiently died with our new unsocial lives.

There are ways, other than the terraced buildings, shabby housing and boarded up buildings to notice inner-cities. Many "corner & off-license" shops have been built, below houses owned by families. In the inner city there are usually one or two high streets, which are now abandoned, like a Route 66 highway town, this is because new, larger shops, like ASDA (Wallmart) have opened, offering cheaper goods.

Inner Suburbs [Blue Area]:

In the 1950's, many new houses were developed outside the inner city, these houses were significantly more spacious, they had larger gardens and prided themselves on being "the new homes". Many of the richer citizens in the inner-city strived for better housing, with more disposable income and new, nicer housing being built, many packed up and left the inner city. By 1976 it was reported that 44% of children who were raised in the Inner city in the past twenty years had moved to the suburbs. Another fact about children in suburbs is that they're 60% more likely to achieve in school than children raised in the inner city.

The suburbs is the place a 'common' family would live, they would usually have a average size family and be living on a 'more than average' wage. Suburbs were and still are ideal for a family, much cheaper then CBD housing, which are unfit for a family to live in and much less expensive then the Outer suburb housing. There are not a huge amount of ways to spot if you're in the inner or outer suburbs, apart from the larger the housing gets the outer you get. Many primary schools are based within the inner-suburbs/inner-city area. Old secondary schools which have not been rebuilt may been plotted around the inner-suburbs, but most secondary schools now are built on the edge of inner-suburbs/outer-suburbs. Community Secondary schools will be plotting within the middle of inner-suburbs to attract as many pupils as possible.

Parks can be found within the inner-suburbs, these parks can be very distinctly different to the inner-city & outer-suburb parks in many ways; inner-suburb parks have the usual 1970's look of nature combined with fun (For Example - Saltwell Park). Inner-city parks are split into two categories: cage football/basketball courts & small recreation parks, outer-suburbs have a small, modernised look. Small post offices and modern corner shops can be found within inner suburbs sometimes.

Outer Surburbs [Brown Area]:

The hard workers, the businessmen in the city center and the others that can afford to splash out heaps of money on a large property. The outer suburbs has some of the most modern housing in the country. Some large classical houses have been seen on the market and their size is only matched by their cost, most of the outer suburb houses are on the market for over £300,000. These classical houses were created by rich farmers and very wealthy families back before the suburbs were developed.

What do these huge houses offer? Just how can you recognize the outer from the rest of the city? Since 1995, MEDC cities have noticed larger development then the whole of the 21st century. With this growth, we've got a large division of the classes, with the working class taking up the inner city, the middle class taking up the inner-suburbs and the higher class taking most of the CBD flats and houses and the taking the outer suburb houses. Some very rich people have bought old farmhouses from old farming families.

Other than the luxurious insides the outer suburb houses have very large front and back gardens with enough space for half a dozen cars. They've got a large amount of garden and other natures wonders growing. They'll most likely be two to four floored houses and come with a very large garage.

How do you spot the suburbs without looking at the houses?

There are many noticeable things in the outer suburbs other than the enormous housing. The main thing is the large amount of nature and modernistic use of the land, in ways which make everything seem new, welcoming and rich. You will find huge shopping centres (ASDA, TESCO) based in the outer-suburbs, along the green belt highways that defend the countryside from becoming urban environment.

The major difference that separates the outer suburbs from any other part of the Urban Land Use Model is just space: nature and quiet that comes with it (apart from the main highways), which are based around half a mile away from the centers of the outer-suburbs, there is near to no congestion within the outer suburbs because of new, larger roads.

On the outside of the Land Use Model, you'll find farmland, nature and protected cottages, such as Ambleside.