Criticisms of the Concentric Model     

Theorists have argued that cities had multiple centres rather than a single urban core. This perspective was also known as the ‘sector theory’ that suggested that cities were carved up not by concentric zones but by unevenly shaped sectors within which different economic activities tended to congregate together. Homer Hoyt (1939) suggested that the cities do not take the ecological pattern suggested by Burgess. Thus the city grew in irregular blobs rather than in Burgess’s neat circles. According to Hoyt, the city grew along the lines of economic activities and main lines of transportation. The city is shaped more like a starfish or a spoked wheel.