Archives: FAQs

We’re doing this project to build a community-informed dataset that captures what matters most to the people of Taos County. This information will help guide future decisions, projects, and initiatives—shaping planning, development, economic opportunities, and policy in ways that reflect local values and priorities.

Taos County Economic Development is working to create economic opportunities that reflect and sustain the unique character of Taos County—its landscape, people, and communities. To do this effectively, we need to understand what local residents truly value: the places, traditions, and cultural lifeways that define this region. This knowledge must inform the decisions being made in government spaces around economic development, land use, and planning for our shared future.

The urgency of this work stems from increasing gentrification and economic pressures that threaten to displace communities and erase what makes this place home. The Cultural Treasures Project (CTP) was launched in response— a community-driven effort to identify, document, and uplift the people, places, and practices that matter most. This project is about naming what we love so we can protect it. It’s about ensuring that future growth strengthens our identity rather than replaces it.

Please learn more about the intended impacts and uses here. 

Cultural Assets or Cultural Treasures are people, groups, customs, places, the natural world and events that hold meaningful aesthetic, knowledge and/or historic value that establish shared individual and community identity. Cultural treasures can be tangible, intangible, emotional, and/or spiritual.

To submit a cultural treasure to the map, please complete a questionnaire now.