On the Monocentric Model of Urban Land Use

Abstract

In towns, land use and in settlement structure connected with it as well as the supply and demand characteristics of properties can be analysed with different methodologies and models. In urban economics mococentric urban model is a well-known concept, which was elaborated by Alonso in 1964 with the further development of Thünen’s theory concerning to agricultural land use. Alonso applied the main ideas, concepts and methodologies of neo-classical economics for his urban structure analysis with the introduction of the rent function and attempted to present the features of spatial balance between supply and demand of urban land.

In our study, after the introduction of the most important concepts we present the main ideas of the monocentric urban model. We derive in detail the expressions giving information on the intensity of land use, and which can characterise the enterprises’ rent functions. We also analyse home selection decisions of households. Based on the offering rent function of the two types of microeconomic organisation (the enterprises and the households) we present the monocentric model and its polycentric extension seemed to be applicable nowadays. In the study we review and interpret the international literature’s widely accepted recent theoretical results.