The study of the Mesoamerican urban realm is energized by two significant recent developments. One of these developments is the technical achievement of full-coverage survey through the use of Light Detection and Ranging (lidar) methods. Lidar enables archaeologists to elicit the plans of entire cities and their surrounding regions even in densely vegetated environments that had previously yielded archaeological remains only through challenging and time-consuming processes of excavation and transect survey. The other significant development is a theoretical one, in which a critical mass of excavation data on the chronologies of sites and their associated structures now enables us to address changes over time within long-lived urban settlements. By looking at diachronic shifts in architecture and material objects, researchers have facilitated an appreciation of the subtleties of developmental sequences of urban characteristics such as ritual monumentality and civic leadership.