There are few purely Renaissance cities in Europe, for experiments with new urban ideas were generally constrained by existence of older city fabrics. But New World offered a clean slate, and Spanish conquests and settlements led to building of almost 350 new cities in accordance with a set of edicts, The Laws of Indies, that embodied Renaissance concepts of urban form: regular street patterns, harmonious groupings of major institutions around large central open spaces, and provisions for orderly expansion.In examining North American Spanish cities, this book presents a neglected aspect of American urban It opens with an annotated translation of Phillip II's Laws of Indies, making available for first time in book form the most influential body of urban law in human history. It then presents studies of urban history of Santa Fe, Los Angeles, and St. Louis. Even today, under successive waves of population sprawl and industrialization in these cities, bare outlines of Spanish Colonial planning can be detected, which still affects ebb and flow of daily life.A final section of book discusses gradual breakdown in first part of 19th century of traditional Spanish patterns of city design, as exemplified in Monterey and San Jose. Illustrations include plans, maps, and early views that show stages of development and reveal founders' dreams of future prospects.Dora P. Crouch is an architectural historian affiliated with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Daniel J. Garr is a planner and planning historian at San Jose State University, and Axel I. Mundigo is an urban sociologist with Population Council in Mexico City.