It is held that the study of complex societies can effectively focus on the human interactions that define communities. Given the operational primacy of architectural survey in archaeological investigations, with some prominent exceptions, it is surprising how little attention has been paid to how communities of varying scales can actually be identified using these data sets. This article weds a modified version of Yaeger and Canuto's (2000) ‘interactional approach’ to community identity with a materialist (empirical) body of method-theory known as space syntax in a discussion of community structure and systems of authority represented in the architectural structures and spaces of epicentral Teotihuacan, Mexico.