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at the University of Chicago, where scholars
including Robert Park, Louis Wirth and
Ernest Burgess established an agenda, approach
(human ecology) and methodology for
the study of urban areas. From the 1910s
through to the 1930s, the scholars at the
Chicago School set out to study thecityas
‘a product. .. of human nature’ (Park, 1967
[1925], p. 1). Indeed, the Chicago School
sociologists saw the city as ‘the natural habitat
of civilized man [sic]’ (Park, 1967 [1925],
p. 2). Fundamental to their theories about
urban life was an expectation of social organ-
ization and control. They anticipated that
land use patterns in a city would reflect
‘an orderly and typical grouping of its
population and institutions’ (Park, 1967
[1925], p. 1), and sought to study these
systematically. Chicago School sociologists
developed detailed descriptions of urban life
based on field observations of Chicago. In
doing so, they advocated thatethnographic
methods drawn from anthropology be applied
to urban cultures (Park, 1967 [1925]). Their
in-depth observations were hindered by a ten-
dency to generalize from the single Chicago
case, but their emphasis on observation
remains influential incommunityresearch.
The Chicago sociologists drew upon
Darwin’s theories of order and ‘cooperative
competition’ among species in a sharedterri-
toryand applied them to humans in urban
environments (Park, 1936). The concept of
community articulated the biotic level of social
organization, which correlated for the Chicago
School scholars withrace and ethnicity
(Theodorson, 1961; Knox, 1994). Social
communities as defined by ethnicity formed
‘natural areas’ that were segregated from one
another (Park, 1967 [1925]). By applying bio-
logicalmetaphorsto sociology, Park and his
colleagues were creating a scientific justifica-
tion and legitimation for the study of social
phenomena (Entrikin, 1980). At the same
time, however, their naturalizing of racialized
social communities fostered and reinforced
notions of aghettothat was both voluntary
and temporary: ‘they never saw the difference
between the ethnic enclave and the black
ghetto’ (Philpott, 1991 [1978], p. 141).
Further, Philpott argues that with the excep-
tion of the ‘Black belt’ African-American
ghetto, the natural areas (social communities)
about which the Chicago sociologists wrote
were never as homogeneous as some of their
writings suggested.
Well-known and influential studies of ‘nat-
ural areas’ that were developed by the ChicagoSchool faculty and their students include
Zorbaugh’sThe gold coast and the slum(1929)
and Frazier’s ‘Negro Harlem: an ecological
study’ (1937). Perhaps the most famous
among the writings of the Chicago School,
however, is that of Ernest Burgess on ‘The
growth of the city’ (1967 [1925]). In it, he
offered a descriptivemodelof urban structure
to explain land use, urban growth andneigh-
bourhoodchange. He posited urban expan-
sion based on differentiation of land uses and
competition among those uses (a basic premise
also articulated in thevon thu
..
nen modeland
also other land-use models by Hoyt (1939) and
Alonso (1960), among others). Hiszonal
modelrepresented the city as a series of ‘con-
centric circles’, or zones. The central zone at
the core of the city was thecentral business
district(cbd), called the ‘loop’ in his model
due to the influence of Chicago as the empirical
case study. Successive zones were described as
residential areas, differentiated from one
another based on categories of ethnicity, social
classand housing type.
The process of urban expansion was
explained by Burgess (1967 [1925]) in terms
of theinvasion and successionof one zone
(predominant land use) into the next outer
zone adjacent to it, with physical expansion
of the city the result. Themobilityassumed
in the model to be inherent to urban expan-
sion was seen by Burgess to be both a stimulus
to urban growth and the source of instability,
especially in lower-income and immigrant
communities. Thus,crime,poverty,home-
lessnessand social and psychological instabil-
ity were seen as naturally occurring phenomena
in the zone of transition just outside of the
expanding CBD (Burgess, 1967 [1925], p. 54).
Burgess’ model, and the overall goals of
the Chicago School to study urban life, com-
munity and organization, have been extremely
influential in urban studies generally, includ-
ing urban geography. The inherent (and
explicit) spatiality of Burgess’ model of
urban growth is appealing to geographers.
Terms such as CBD are ubiquitous in the
field. Yet the assumptions underlying the
model and its theory of growth, particularly
the naturalization ofrace, ethnicity and
social problems such ascrimeandhomeless-
ness, limit its use and applicability.
The Chicago School is clearly situated in
and thus limited by its time and place –
because of its reliance on human ecology and
Darwinianmetaphors, and upon the city of
Chicago as the maincase study. Yet Park’s
(1967 [1925]) original description of anGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_C Final Proof page 79 31.3.2009 9:45pmCHICAGO SCHOOL