Hippodamus was widely regarded as the inventor of modern urban planning, promoting the use of regular street layout, with intersecting axes and a more systematic and defined separation between public and private place. This study looks at the origins of cities founded in the Greek colonies of the west, the evolution of a characteristic city plan and the development of the polis . Exploring the archaeology of cities such as Naxos, Megara Hyblaea, Metapontum, Selinus and Posidonia, Varela traces the aims of the colonisers, the characteristivs of the intial settlements and the emergence of the planned city and polis . Spanish text; long English conclusion.