Concentric Zone Theory was developed in urban sociology to explain crime rates; who developed it?

Concentric Zone Theory was developed in urban sociology to explain crime rates; who developed it?

• A. Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay
• B. Robert Park and Louis Wirth
• C. Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses
• D. Hernando de Soto and Karl Popper

Answer: (A)

Concentric Zone Theory uses a city’s spatial layout to explain crime, showing how neighborhoods arranged in rings around the central business district experience different crime patterns. The theory was developed by Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay, who studied Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s and linked higher delinquency in the transitional zone to social disorganization, rapid population turnover, poverty, and disrupted informal social controls. Their work mapped crime across five urban zones and argued that the surrounding ecological context helps shape criminal activity, not individual traits alone. Other figures mentioned weren’t the originators of this model. Park and Wirth contributed to urban sociology and the Chicago School more broadly, but they didn’t formulate the concentric zone framework. Jacobs and Moses are notable urbanists/planners with different emphases, and de Soto and Popper aren’t connected to this theory.

Concentric Zone Theory uses a city’s spatial layout to explain crime, showing how neighborhoods arranged in rings around the central business district experience different crime patterns. The theory was developed by Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay, who studied Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s and linked higher delinquency in the transitional zone to social disorganization, rapid population turnover, poverty, and disrupted informal social controls. Their work mapped crime across five urban zones and argued that the surrounding ecological context helps shape criminal activity, not individual traits alone.

Other figures mentioned weren’t the originators of this model. Park and Wirth contributed to urban sociology and the Chicago School more broadly, but they didn’t formulate the concentric zone framework. Jacobs and Moses are notable urbanists/planners with different emphases, and de Soto and Popper aren’t connected to this theory.