In describing the organization of ancient urban centers, archaeologists (ourselves included) are generally constrained by the limitations of survey to focusing on the latest or most expansive physical form taken by the city before its abandonment. Nevertheless, we must realize that, with a few short-lived exceptions, cities are palimpsests created over generations through occupations that overlay and modify, but incompletely obscure, the traces of past forms (e.g., Ashmore and Sabloff 2002). This is because urbanization, as a spatial and historical process, responds to perceived needs and aspirations of the historical moment as well as the physical and remembered imprint of the past. In this chapter we apply this perspective to Formative (1450 BCE–300 CE) urban centers in the southern Gulf Lowlands of Mexico, drawing particularly on our research in and around the site of Tres Zapotes, Veracruz (for location of sites see Chapter 1, Fig. 1.1).