Cities for People: 1500s Guatemalan town and the Laws of the Indies

I came across this City on a trip to Central America and I happened upon the greatest living example of an "Ideal City" layout in my life. I made a video of this living tribute to the Laws of the Indies.

Ideal City: Laws of the Indies - Asunción Mita, Guatemala - Top 10 Cities for People

The Laws of the Indies were from the time period of Castilian era of the Spanish "conquests" into the Americas. The King wrote 140 rules for how cities should develop. The included first building plaza with a government building, church and two side of commerce at the heart.

Urban design for human rights
These rules, in an odd way, were really the beginnings of human rights as we know them and modern government. The plaza was placed in front of the government building to have a place for the public to demonstrate their grievances. There was accountability.

This pattern would often repeat, as we see in the Americas, such as Savannah, GA below. Parks would be systematically placed throughout the cities and civics/education and faith were always based around it. While the conquests did terrible things, it added to the enlightenment - including clean cities, distribution of ideas and prosperity.

These planning rules all over the Americas
This design of an Ideal City lasted into the west rail cities of the West. You can see the design from Portland, Ore., to Santa Fe, NM and others. The design was such a wild success it mades its influence all the way to Australia.

The next time you visit a City that has a town square, look to see if there is one a few blocks away. Then, notice if there is shopping, a church, a type of civic building or similar. Most of this structure changed with the introduction of the automobile and modernism of the early 1900s.

You can read more in my blog post, about the street grid aspect.

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