Travelers who visit Latin American cities certainly will not fail to notice their uniform and planned character: a square central plaza, a church and a town hall fronting it, straight streets crossing at right angles, blocks of the same shape and size, etc. Those who venture into rural communities with a large native population will realize that the same urban structure repeats itself there. It is impressive to find, amid the steep valleys of the Peruvian highlands or the flooded plains of the Bolivian lowlands, a tiny urban center laid out in a regular grid plan, which would seem to be the only stronghold of civilization against the savagery that surrounds it and encompasses it. These rural communities have the same civil and ecclesiastical organizations as the cities, and the villagers practice the same form of self-government and Christianity. These miniature urban centers are a legacy of a colonial policy known as reducción.
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