Setha Low is a former president of theAmerican Anthropological Association, a professor in environmental psychology, and the director of the Public Space Research Group at the City University of New York. Low also served as a Conservation Guest

"This is one of the best accounts of a place's history and meaning I have ever read. Low's work should be widely used in courses in architecture, urban design, planning, landscape architecture, and historic preservation, as well as Latin American studies and anthropology. What a wonderful book!" Dolores Hayden, Professor of Architecture, Urbanism, and American Studies, Yale University "Combining ethnography, history, and spatial theory, this interdisciplinary book brings the Latin American plaza to life as a spatial expression of culture and politics. A paean to the plaza as democratic public space, it is as absorbing as it is unconventional." Neil Smith, Department of Geography and Center for the Critical Analysis of Contemporary Culture, Rutgers University

This is one of the best accounts of a place's history and meaning I have ever read. Low's book should be widely read and used in courses in architecture, urban design, planning, landscape architecture, and historic preservation, as well as Latin American studies and anthropology. What a wonderful book! (Dolores Hayden, Professor of Architecture, Urbanism, and American Studies, Yale University)