Spatial data analysis has seen explosive growth in recent years. Both in mainstream statistics and econometrics as well as in many applied fields, the attention to space, location, and interaction has become an important feature of scholarly work. The methods developed to deal with problems of spatial pattern recognition, spatial au- correlation, and spatial heterogeneity have seen greatly increased adoption, in part due to the availability of user friendly desktop software. Through his theoretical and appliedwork, Arthur Getish as been a major contributing figure in this development. In this volume, we take both a retrospective and a prospective view of the field. We use the occasion of the retirement and move to emeritus status of Arthur Getis to highlight the contributions of his work. In addition, we aim to place it into perspective in light of the current state of the art and future directions in spatial data analysis. To this end, we elected to combine reprints of selected classic contributions by Getis with chapters written by key spatial scientists. These scholars were specifically invited to react to the earlier work by Getis with an eye toward assessing its impact, tracing out the evolution of related research, and to reffect on the future broadening of spatial analysis. The organizationof the book follows four main themes in Getis’ contributions: • Spatial analysis • Pattern analysis • Local statistics • Applications For each of these themes, the chapters provide a historical perspective on early methodological developments and theoretical insights, assessments of these contributions in light of the current state of the art, as well as descriptions of new techniques and applications.