A model of the pre-capitalist city, proposed by G. Sjöberg (1960). The city centre is occupied by a small elite. The lower classes occupy the concentric zone surrounding the centre, and the outcasts are consigned to the outer edges of the city. Abbott (1974) Amer. Soc. Rev. 39, 4 finds that the distribution pattern of socio-economic status in pre-revolutionary Moscow was consistent with Sjöberg’s model.