ABSTRACT
Laid out in partial conformance to the Law of the Indies, the Plaza in Santa Fe, New Mexico was surrounded in the 1850s by the key administrative buildings and the homes of the city’s elite. This chapter argues that the landscapes that are the most symbolically important are also the most contested, and therefore the most regulated. It focuses closely on a set of controversies centred on the Santa Fe Plaza; to explore the complex and contradictory dynamics of law and property as they intersect to shape and define a critical public space that is the symbolic heart of Santa Fe’s landscape. The chapter draws on a series of interviews with participants in Plaza controversies conducted in June 2001, and on a survey of New Mexico state newspapers from 1994 to 2004.
